THINGS I'VE NOTICED BY NOT HAVING INSURANCE

Drug companies advertise drugs a lot!
Open a magazine, turn on TV, surf the internet; you'll get bombarded with pharmaceutical ads.
Veramyst, Flomax and Paxil were all featured during a four minute commercial break during NBC News, on TV in the background, while I type this. That combination, and many more, are repeated all during the day.
Drug advertising has convinced a generation or more that you should self-diagnose, go to the doctor, and get what you think you need.
These drug companies are the ones we should declare war on. They are corrupting a nation, one pill at a time.
A Lunesta commercial is on now. Followed by Aleve.

Healthcare costs:
If you have insurance, your costs are mostly your co-pays, deductibles and electives. But do you know how much the procedures, tests and treatments cost in full?
I developed a blood clot in my lower leg that needed immediate treatment. I went to the hospital because I had no doctor.
The attending physician needed an ultrasound for diagnoses and I had to go to the financial office to arrange a payment plan for the $750 test. I got the test for a down payment of $200 and a payment plan.
Four hours later, with confirmation of a clot, I was admitted to a hospital from the emergency room. As soon as I landed on the bed, I was informed that the medical treatment would be a hypodermic injection three times a day.
I was capable of injecting the medicine myself. At my suggestion, the doctor agreed to write me a prescription for five days worth of the medicine, so I could treat myself at home and save the hospital charges.
I immediately discharged from the hospital, luckily with no costs, and went to my pharmacy. Before filling it, the pharmacist informed us that it would cost me $3000.
I went back to the hospital, unfulfilled.
I had to get re-admitted, which I had to do through the emergency room since the office had closed for the day. It took 8 hours to get re-admitted.
The next day, when I informed the doctor why I was back, he was as incredulous as I was at the cost of the drug.
I stayed five days in the hospital which they billed me at over $1000 a day, so someone could give me the shots I couldn't afford to buy.
After leaving the hospital, I was prescribed an anti-coagulant drug. My blood had to be tested ever two weeks for clotting agents, to make sure it was the right dose of drug.
I got three of them done at the hospital at $140 a piece before I found a doctor who would take a patient without insurance.
At my new doctor's office, the same exact blood test for the same exact thing, only cost me $30 a piece.
My new doctor also reduces his bill by 20% if you pay in full each visit. My last office visit cost me $25. He's a doctor in the best sense.

Please support universal health care.
It will stop much of the greed connected to the treatment processes.
It will give doctors and nurses the power to heal you, and take that power away from paper jockeys in corporate cubicles who's financial incentives are to deny as many claims as possible.
Let doctors do what they do best.