The "Kelly has Bronchitis" post

So, I feel like I should write something, but I'm sick. I went to the emergency room thursday night, and then went to my doctors today. Turns out I have bronchitis.

So, lets examine how much getting bronchitis runs when you have a good, union negotiated, health insurance:

1 trip to ER: $50
1 pro air inhaler $30(!!!)
1 script for cough meds $10
1 pcp visit $15
1 steroid inhaler $30
1 script antibiotics $10

so....that just ran me $145
(and that's not counting the $110 the insurance costs me monthly)

Now, without insurance the ER visit ALONE may have been $234.48 (I got this number from a study by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine).

One of the things that is interesting about Asthma is how it is affected by your environment, and that is to some degree a result of your economic status. Kids who grow up in poorer neighborhoods tend to live with more environmental triggers.

So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, just thinking about how much this cost, and how many folks out there DON'T have insurance, I really hope we are able to manage getting health care reform through, so that everyone has access to affordable health care (the US has the 4th highest mortality rate due to respiratory disease out of 16 "developed" countries). Asthma is a condition that can be pretty successfully treated on an outpatient basis, but without insurance the medication is prohibatively expeinsive (I used to take over a hundred dollars worth of inhalers a month, and again, that was WITH good, union negotiated health insurance).

It also makes me grateful for the sacrifices that union members in the past made to make sure that health care was considered a standard benefit. Even if you're not in a union, most of the things that make work life better (standard workweeks, overtime pay, paid sick and vacation time, health coverage) was fought for by unions before you and I punched our first time clock.