I'm happy to turn today's blog over to Andy Evans.  Please take the time to read his exceptional piece...

    With the upcoming battle over health care reform in this country, I thought it a good time to share my personal adventure in our health care system. Last spring at my wife’s behest, I went to our family doctor to have a spot removed. Fast forward 10 days and I receive a phone call with my lab results; I’ve been diagnosed with melanoma. Kind of scary. Very curable as far as cancers go, but scary nonetheless. We’ve caught it early and I’m referred to a great oncologist and from there, an equally great surgeon. My surgeon is a brilliant and talented guy with or without his scalpel. However, he and I could not be farther apart on the political spectrum. We speak at nearly every visit about things political, namely health care.     
    The good doctor believes something must be done. Iterating the now all too familiar mantra “Doing nothing is no longer an option.” He believes Sweden has got it right. The current state of things in the U.S. is not solvent, and the government must step in. I contend that for a government run healthcare system to exist, a bureaucrat, or worse, a committee, must reside in parts unknown and stamp paperwork determining whether or not you or I receive treatment “X” by looking at a set of facts and figures. We will possibly live or die, in a not-so-figurative sense, by their assessments. I have a horrible vision of a Lilly Tomlin, perched somewhere at a massive switchboard, with terse lips and squinted eyes, plugging in line after line. “One ringy-dingy… Appendectomy? Hold please. Tonsillectomy? Hold please. Dilated to a 9? Hold please.”
    
    You understand my point.

    The doctor agrees that bureaucrats should not have the power to dictate what treatments we are and are not eligible for. He believes doctors must still be in control of patient care. His heart is in the right place; but the devil always seems to be in the details, no?

    The time from my initial biopsy, diagnosis, consultation and surgery was 30 days on the nose. I have kept a Health Savings Account and compatible insurance policy for about 2 years up to this point. Having been a relatively healthy person, I’ve never really tested the coverage. Having been a relatively thrifty person, I’ve fully funded the HSA both of the previous years. What I learned was thus: healthcare is confusing. I was receiving bills from doctors I had not visited, in states I had been to once when I was 12. No laboratory wants to be the lab to wrongly make the benign/malignant call. So they get a second opinion. And a third opinion. Then they send you the bill. When surgery time roles around, if you don’t cooperate and lose consciousness correctly, they call a second anesthetist to come in and watch your blips, beeps and lines. This also cost extra - because apparently this is your fault. My aspirin were $8 each, and I got a really great souvenir water for a mere $40.

    Obviously this is a target rich environment for things that need reforming. At the end of the day, I was none the worse for wear. I have a cool scar on my leg; and with the aid of annual treks to the oncologist, hope to remain cancer free. The whole ordeal ran about $19,000. My portion of this total was between $4,000 and $5,000. This is still a lot of money. I had a touch more than this tucked away safely in my HSA. So while I paid everything I owed out of my own pocket, it never felt like it. I had control. I wrote the checks, read the explanations-of-benefits and through the entire process was in direct contact with the providers of my treatment.

    The crux: we must do something about healthcare. Less red tape, less insurance company profiteering and less lawyers. Way less lawyers. We need doctors, patients and cash. Use this triad for medical care, and in the mean time take better care of yourself. Eat less. Drink less. Smoke less. Go outside. Save some money. Personal responsibility used to be a requirement for staying alive, not just something that cute old people shake their fists about. The government is not the answer. The last thing you ever want to hear when calling the emergency room is “Foreign object lodged in the posterior? Hold please.”

ANDY EVANS