Pete's BLOG-Day 26,568. Why Medicare is going broke

Today is Friday, August 16, 2013. Me stats today: 10 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes lifting weights and 37 minutes of walking = 2.0 miles for an August total of 24 miles. My weight was 163.6 pounds. QUOTE from Albert Einstein: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." My THOUGHTS today are about why Medicare is going broke and why I hate the U.S. healthcare SYSTEM. However, for those of us fortunate enough to be on Medicare or have health insurance through work or on our own we get the best health care in the world. The reason is because we have the best doctors, nurses, hospitals and medical technology in the world. SO I'm NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE CARE WE GET BUT THE WHOLE SYTEM IN GENERAL. The SYSTEM is what I'm complaining about today. For those without health insurance you can end up bankrupt trying to pay your medical bills (60% of bankruptcies in the U.S. are caused by people unable to pay their medical bills.) And if you have no insurance and go to the ER you'll end up with a bill in the thousands of dollars after only a few hours. What got me on this subject was yesterday we received Ruth Ann's medical bill from our local hospital for her 2-day stay in May (it was due to her cracked sternum and ribs,). The total was $5,578.75. When I examined the bill I got angry. What follows is why I got angry. 1. She had 2 physical therapy charges of $159.99 and $107.85. The problem is that the physical therapist only worked with her 1 time for less than half an hour. That's when he put a belt around her waist for safety purposes. He grabbed the belt to make sure she didn't fall and walked her less than 75 steps to a physical therapy room where he made her walk up and down 4 steps. Then she got in a wheel chair and I pushed her back to the room. That took about 20 minutes. He was a former student of mine and I was curious why he had made a career change from a high school science teacher to being a physical therapist. That conversation took about 10 minutes to make our total time together about a half hour And to make matters worse he said now I'm underworked and overpaid and when I was teaching I was overworked and underpaid. 2. The second thing that pissed me off were the charges entitled "DRUGS-SELF ADMIN" Four of the charges were for $5.45, two were for $5.35, and two were for $5.30 and one was for $13.65. I'd like to know why the difference in the charges. 3. Plus there were charges for "DRUGS" of $79.25 and $43.00. Plus another one entitled "DRUG CHARGE" for $43.00. I'd like to know what kind of drugs they were and what were they for and why do you have one entitled "drug charge" and the other two are just "drugs?" That's it for today but I'll vent a little more tomorrow.