No Help

I am a 21 year old female with health issues that need be addressed. I went to see a doctor who has charged me 100 dollars ( which I have not been able to pay him yet ) for a diagnosis. There is no more that he can do.

I have all the risk factors for thrombosis, whichever it may be. He told me I have a blood clot in my leg. I need to go get an MRI done to prove it. I don’t have insurance so it will cost me an arm and a leg to get this done, possibly my life.

I have a 8-month old baby who needs me here. There is nothing I can do. I am walking around with a ticking time bomb, not knowing if what I do on a daily basis will make this thing move. Why can’t we have some sort of healthcare that takes care of people who don’t have money?

I know that I could go to the ER but then I will be put further into medical debt. Is there anyone who knows of a plan that will help me?

Sincerely, Sarah S.
Sebring, Fl
Heathcare Status: Uninsured

Patient Submitted Stories is a project of GuaranteedHealthcare.org. You can read more patient stories here, or submit your own story here.

25 Comments

  1. Whit on March 25, 2010 at 3:05 pm

    Oh, Sarah, I feel you.

    I have several “pre-existing conditions” and like you, have a young child.

    And I have no health insurance. What am I to do? My little girl depends on me in so many ways…but god forbid my “conditions” worsen.



  2. Courtney on March 28, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    Is there any way you can go to a free clinic?



  3. alice on April 5, 2010 at 8:50 am

    Cover Florida will allow you to enroll with preexising conditions. They don’t ask any medical questions. You just have to wait 12 months for any preexisting conditions to be covered. Also, have you tried medicaid? Also medicaid has a buy in plan that will cover your medical bills if they get too high. Call them.



  4. no hc forall on April 11, 2010 at 11:52 pm

    What all of you do not understand is the ALL of us have a pre-existing condition – it is called life.

    You are so misguided in thinking that HC for all is somehow a right. Who gave you that right or where did that right come from? Your own mind?

    Who the hell is going to pay for all of this care? Oh, I know, you want me to pay for your HC. Get a life – pay for your own care – if you dont have the money, ask for financial help.

    Your HC concerns are not my problem. Take car of it yourself – go out and earn the money.



    • cathy miller on April 24, 2010 at 1:46 pm

      no health care for all:

      Your an ignorant ass. We already have a health care program called medicare. Supposedly health care for all is socialist to you and others like you. Well then is medicare for older people not socialist?
      You get a life and an education too would help.
      Go help the tea party and leave us alone.



    • Rachel on April 25, 2010 at 11:42 pm

      no hc for all:

      I had to reread your comment, I can’t believe people actually feel this way. You know who will pay for this, the government. The government pays billions of dollars every year for this “war” in Iraq, why can’t we spend billions of dollars on the health of our people? I honestly do not hope that you contract some disease such as cancer whose deductibles and co-pays will cost you thousands and thousands of dollars out of pocket, which you will then have to sell your house that you spent the last 20 years in, so you can move in with your kids because you couldn’t afford to pay for your own health care. I mean really, the money we spend on premiums, co-pays, and deductibles adds up to the difference in the extra taxes we would pay. We all will eventually get sick and need expensive medical care. So why can’t we live our lives not worried whether or not we will be able to afford the deductibles if we need expensive surgeries or cancer treatments?? We are already paying for medicaid, let’s pay for health care for those people who work hard but cannot afford health care, the ones that make too much for medicaid, but not enough to afford health care, and they don’t want to quit their jobs just to get medicaid. We need to band together and take care of eachother, not discard our fellow human beings on the side of the road like trash. God forbid someone you loved needed health care they can’t afford and would die as a result of it, I wonder how you would feel then.



    • Chris Hagel on June 21, 2010 at 3:13 pm

      no hc forall,
      you and your peers are operating from such a place of ignorance and fear.
      If you have private health insurance you already are paying for other people’s health care in your insurance plan.
      Even when they have more health problems than you do due to their life style, poor diet, carelessness, etc.
      ALSO, they are paying for YOUR health care.

      It’s called pooling the risk.
      The health insurance industry even admits this, but presently in the US they pool the risk under their highly over priced, low quality/quantity policies and Obama’s fake health care reform will expand this by force to the uninsured of our country.
      If you or someone in your insurance plan got very careless, and cut their hand severely on a lawn mower or fell off a ladder,
      the hospital bill would be paid for (or maybe most of it) through the health insurance plan.
      Health care could never be paid for without the risk pool.

      By simply having A national risk pool across the young and healthy of our whole country, and eliminating the parasitic middleman health insurance industry, the price of health care would be affordable for people and business. We’d also be able to reign in big pharma by bulk purchasing of drugs. The industrialized countries understand this; they all have a non-profit national risk pool of one form or another.

      Basically, we pool the risk (AND YOUR PAYING FOR SOMEONE ELSE) for libraries, police/fire, roads, parks etc. even though we don’t use them all the time.
      Are you getting all bent out of shape about this? Do you want to end this?

      The health insurance industry and big pharma in this country are doing everything they can to protect their billion dollar business with fear and smear tactics.

      no hc forall, I have to reply to your statement “…Take care of it yourself-go out and earn the money.”
      Do you know, no hc forall, it’s a fact that about 60% of bankruptcies are due completely or mostly to medical bills, and about 75% of those people had what they thought was adequate health insurance and gainfully employed until they became very ill or injured. Then, the co-pays and deductibles sunk them.

      no hc forall, it is a very dim world that you envision for our country, however, even if you can’t wrap your mind around the solution from a more happier, civilized, and securer America; from a completely sterile and practical stand point, it’s much better for our economy, business and self-employed people.

      We can smooth out any problems with HR 676 that arise, after all, the tea baggers and you pound your chest about how great America is (I agree) and how we can do anything. Also, when it comes to your fellow Americans in your and the tea baggers phony populist ideas and United We Stand mantra, you and the tea baggers say: “Get a life, pay for your own care…Your HC concerns are not my problem. Take care of it yourself-go out and earn the money.”

      With this said, I’m all for the idea of self reliance and limited government but some things do not belong in the commodities and privilege column.

      no hc forall, you ask “How are we going to pay for all this health care.”
      no hc forall, like the corporate media censored Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich has been saying all along: “We’re already paying for universal health care, we’re just not getting it.”

      Click on this link to see why:
      http://www.pnhp.org/search/google/paying%20for%20universal%20health%20care%20and%20not%20geting%20it?query=paying%20for%20universal%20health%20care%20and%20not%20geting%20it&cx=015249405663905105964%3Aebn8t4lcngk&cof=FORID%3A11&sitesearch=#954

      You should understand HR 676 as the frame work around which this can be achieved.



    • Chris Hagel on June 21, 2010 at 4:16 pm

      you and your peers are operating from such a place of ignorance and fear.
      If you have private health insurance you already are paying for other people’s health care in your insurance plan.
      Even when they have more health problems than you do due to their life style, poor diet, carelessness, etc.
      ALSO, they are paying for YOUR health care.

      It’s called pooling the risk.
      The health insurance industry even admits this, but presently in the US they pool the risk under their highly over priced, low quality/quantity policies and Obama’s fake health care reform will expand this by force to the uninsured of our country leaving millions uninsured.
      If you or someone in your insurance plan got very careless, and cut their hand severely on a lawn mower or fell off a ladder,
      the hospital bill would be paid for (or maybe most of it) through the health insurance plan.
      Health care could never be paid for without the risk pool.

      By simply having A national risk pool across the young and healthy of our whole country, and eliminating the parasitic middleman health insurance industry, the price of health care would be affordable for people and business. We’d also be able to reign in big pharma by bulk purchasing of drugs. The industrialized countries understand this; they all have a non profit national risk pool of one form or another.

      Basically, we pool the risk (AND YOU’RE PAYING FOR SOMEONE ELSE) for libraries, police/fire, roads, parks etc. even though we don’t use them all the time.
      Are you getting all bent out of shape about this? Do you want to end this?

      The health insurance industry and big pharma in this country are doing everything they can to protect their billion dollar business with fear and smear tactics.

      no hc forall, I have to reply to your statement “…Take care of it yourself-go out and earn the money.”
      Do you know, no hc forall, it’s a fact that about 60% of bankruptcies are due completely or mostly to medical bills, and about 75% of those people had what they thought was adequate health insurance and gainfully employed until they became very ill or injured. Then, the co-pays and deductibles sunk them.

      no hc forall, it is a very dim world that you envision for our country, however, even if you can’t wrap your mind around the solution from a more happier, civilized, and securer America stand point; from a completely sterile and practical stand point, it’s much better for business and self-employed people.

      We can smooth out any problems with HR 676 that arise, after all, the tea baggers and you pound your chest about how great America is (I agree) and how we can do anything. Also, when it comes to your fellow Americans in your and the tea baggers populist ideas and United We Stand mantra, you and the tea baggers suddenly say: “Get a life, pay for your own care…Your HC concerns are not my problem. Take care of it yourself-go out and earn the money.”

      With this said, I’m all for the idea of self reliance and limited government but some things do not belong in the commodities and privilege column.

      no hc forall, you ask “How are we going to pay for all this health care.”
      no hc forall, like the corporate media censored Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich has been saying all along: “We’re already paying for universal health care, we’re just not getting it.”

      Click on this link:
      http://www.pnhp.org/search/google/paying%20for%20universal%20health%20care%20and%20not%20geting%20it?query=paying%20for%20universal%20health%20care%20and%20not%20geting%20it&cx=015249405663905105964%3Aebn8t4lcngk&cof=FORID%3A11&sitesearch=#954

      You should understand HR 676 as the frame work around which this can be achieved.



    • Shelley on July 5, 2010 at 1:21 pm

      to: no hcforall:

      Gee, maybe we should privatize the fire department. I can see it now: your house is on fire. You call the fire department, but before they can dispatch the trucks they have to check on your “fire insurance”. Oops, your fire started in the kitchen (or whatever) and your insurance doesn’t cover that sort of fire. I guess your house just has to burn down!! How about the police department: Someone is breaking into your house. Oops, you don’t have “police insurance” because you lost your job and can’t afford it now. Oh well, I guess you just have to let the intruder in. We consider having access to protection from fires, crimes, having good roads, libraries etc. etc. a right, not a privilege. You don’t hear any complaints about that. Why don’t we consider having access to health care a right and not a privilege? no hcforall: Your callousness towards Sarah and countless others in her position is unbelievable. Would you feel the same way if our fire department was run like our health care system? Would you say: “If they don’t have the right insurance coverage, let their house burn down! I’m not paying for it!” The fact is, what you would be paying if we had universal health care is probably less than what you pay now with private health insurance. I personally would much rather put my money towards all of us having access to health care than towards helping some CEO of an insurance company to make more millions. We ought to all be disgusted by a system which allows people to die because they don’t have the proper health insurance coverage.



    • ultragreen on November 16, 2010 at 6:48 pm

      Private employer-based health insurance is subsidized by the government through tax right-offs; people without this kind of insurance do not receive such right-offs, therefore they are subsidizing people who are supposedly “self-sufficient” by paying taxes at a higher rate. It is hypocritical to state that other people have sole responsibility for paying their health care, when you’re own health care is being subsidized by other people. Also, many people making this claim are themselves on government-run health plans, or their jobs are subsidized either directly or indirectly by government contracts (funded by taxpayers). This adds yet another layer to their hypocrisy.

      My response to people who claim that health care isn’t a right is the following: access to health care isn’t merely a right, it is a moral obligation of civilized society. Any society that doesn’t provide access to health care to all of its citizens is neither civilized nor ethical.



      • Jersi on April 10, 2012 at 6:55 pm

        Amen Ultragreen!!! A MORAL OBLIGATION!! My favorite expression of this is a picture floating around facebook that depicts Jesus telling a crowd, “I can’t heal you; You have a pre-existing condition.” So much for the “Christian” roots that so many politicians are in favor of.



    • Shelly O on June 8, 2011 at 8:31 pm

      What your ignorant self can’t understand is that you have been socialized to believe that health care is not a human right. How easy your small brain is to wash. Thank goodness that there are people out here who do understand how health care in this country works; it doesn’t because it is a broken and wrong system of sickness insurance that is designed to keep you sick, and in your case stupid. The biggest problem, besides ignoramuses, is that it is profit driven, and the only winners are big corporations and certainly not you or I, and you also should understand that no matter how good you think your health care is, and no matter how long you think that you might have it, you are inches away from being destroyed by your health care, and frankly I hope that happens for you soon so that you might wake up and realize how much you really don’t know and how you are fighting for something that leads to your demise, and you don’t even have a clue.



    • Jersi on April 10, 2012 at 6:53 pm

      You don’t seem to understand that no one got to where they are without the help of someone else. That is what SOCIETY is all about–helping each other for the collective benefit. If you disagree with collective benefit (of which you take part in by using the internet, driving to work, and shopping at the grocery store) then perhaps you should move to an island in the middle of nowhere that is uninhabited so you can experience some real “fend for yourself”.



  5. cathy miller on April 24, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    Sarah, I hope you got help at the ER. You need to get that taken care of asap! What will happen to your daughter if you die? Thats more important than a medical bill.

    I hope you are all right.



  6. Kent Zavacky on May 12, 2010 at 11:58 am

    Healthcare for all is a right of Dignity! Ask any one from any civilized, developed country (not the US). Taxpayers already pay for 10’s of millions for gov’t healthcare, but where is the protest for taxpayers paying one of three tax dollars for Pentagon budget. Gov’t also has a role to protect the people from unscrupulous private free market businesses. I mean when one builds there house in a flood plain and the 100 year flood comes the question is where is my Fed Gov’t to help me! So Teapartyers go home, in 1773 there was tea thrown overboard due to no representation, but now Tea Partyers listen up -your representation should be in the form of healthcare, education , social security (thank you FDR for providing for my widowed mother),medicare and certainly medicare (healthcare) for all



  7. Carol Cleary on November 7, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    For those who say that healthcare is NOT a right of all citizens, you are forgetting one very important fact – people who have pre-existing conditions does not equal people who do not work. I am am very sick and tired of that argument. Educate yourself as to what “pre-existing illness” means – it means that you have a history of a medical problem. If you were ever treated for a UTI, a heart attack, panic attack, or the common cold, you have a pre-existing history. That doesn’t mean you stopped working, now does it? I keep hearing how YOU don’t want YOUR tax dollars to pay for people with pre-existing illnesses. What about the tax dollars of the people with Pre-existing illnesses? Should THEIR tax dollars go to keep YOUR air clean, YOUR healthcare affordable, or YOUR tax dollars low? Where should MY tax dollars (WHICH ARE QUITE HIGH, AS I AM A PROFESSIONAL WITH PRE-EXISTING ILLNESSES!) be spent? On you???? NO WAY!!!!!

    We have got to stop categorizing people according to those with and those without pre-existing illnesses and start considering that ALL Americans pay taxes unless they are unemployed, and in that case, they ALREADY are being covered by Government provided insurance that we, the working Americans pay for in our taxes. WE working wounded are NOT the problem!!! We are PART of the Solution!



  8. Timothy Shaw MD on November 16, 2010 at 1:34 am

    Twenty years ago, upon entering private medical practice for the first time it took me about a month to realize that the United States needed “Health Care Reform.” After serving the previous fifteen years in the US Army Medical Corps, I started my first civilian medical job. I was asked to come to a hospital by another surgeon to perform an ear operation on a 3 year old boy at the same time as he would be performing an eye operation. This would save the child from two anesthetics on two different days. Since I had never worked at that hospital, and apparently in order to set me straight from the start, one of the head doctors at this hospital, came up to me in the preoperative holding area, and boldly shoved the child’s chart in my face, pointed to the child’s insurance (Medicaid (Welfare)) and shamelessly told me, “if all you are going to do, is to bring this “****” in here, then we don’t need you to come here.” The poor little guy sitting in the corner with his Mom, was smiling at us with his cute partially toothless grin, and coke-bottle glasses. He didn’t realize what one of his doctors called him because of his health insurance coverage.

    Again, several months later I was called to a different hospital (one that I normally did not work at either) in the same city by an operating nurse who asked if I took Medicaid “welfare patients.” She asked me if I would come to their operating room to take a coin out of a 2 year old child’s esophagus. She informed me that their hospital doctors in my specialty did not take welfare patients and they were looking for someone to do the operation as the child had choked on a coin. “Apparently someone forgot to screen this child’s insurance before he came to the operating room.” I canceled my clinic patients and drove across town, performed an esophagoscopy and removed the coin.

    Obviously, the doctors in these above scenarios did not support “the Public Option” (Medicaid).

    What had happened to our Health Care System? What had changed? Where was the honor that we had in the Army Medical Corps? We treated everyone from Generals to Privates and their families with the same respect. In accordance with Geneva Conventions, we even treated enemy soldiers during the Iraq War in our Combat Support Hospitals with the same care that we treated our own.

    In a significant measure the United States Private Health System had changed into “Big Business.” In some measure the humanitarian emphasis had eroded.

    Although spurning the pharmaceutical industry as “conflict of interest” entities, not suitable for proper patient care, surprisingly, doctors saw no apparent conflict of interest in merging with the Health Insurance Industry. Doctors and the Health Insurance Business became so closely aligned that their DNA intertwined to form a new species. This powerful new combined-arms team became the forme fruste of our new United States Health Care Industry. Doctors armed with new found business tactics, and the Health Insurance Industry armed with the legitimacy of the Doctor’s legal authority to limit health care to patients became the de facto United States Health Care System.

    The business meeting replaced the medical conference to discuss “patient care” issues. To cope with the ever burgeoning bureaucracy, more and more doctors went into administration. More doctors have their MBA’s then carry black bags and make house calls. Mergers, Acquisitions, Expansions, Contracts, Covered Lives, Marketing Strategy, Demographics, Competition Threat Forecasts, Actuarial Science, and Health Insurance became the focus of many doctors. Time was spent on avoiding insurance business risk, trying to avoid the high risk patients, finding the better payer groups, etc. Hospitals became less hospitable. Doctor’s began to discharge patients so rapidly, that in the mid 1980’s the majority of States passed consumer protection laws (”Drive By Delivery Laws”) to protect mothers/newborns from being discharged from the hospital too soon.

    Currently, the U.S. health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Despite spending more than twice as much as the rest of the industrialized nations ($7,129 per capita), the United States performs poorly in comparison on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates.

    Expenditures in the United States on health care surpassed $2.2 trillion in 2007, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980. The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.

    Moreover, the other advanced nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the U.S. leaves 45.7 million completely uninsured and millions more inadequately covered. Spain has a constitutional law guaranteeing health care for all of its citizens. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have a single payer government national health plan covering all of its citizens.

    More Americans die of lack of health insurance than terrorism, homicide, drunk driving and HIV combined. Lack of health insurance kills 45,000 American adults a year, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. One out of three Americans under age 65 had no private or public health insurance for some or all of 2007-2008. Even with health insurance, many Americans are a medical crisis away from bankruptcy. Research shows 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical, a share up 50 percent since 2001. Most of the medically bankrupt had health insurance. American Manufacturing is down, but not American Manufacturing of poor people. In Canada, where they have a single payer government managed health insurance system, bankruptcy filings due to medical bills are precisely zero (0).

    Contrary to myth, the United States does not have the world’s best health care. We’re No. 1 in health care spending, but No. 50 in life expectancy, just before Albania. In Japan, people live four years longer than Americans. Canadians live three years longer. Forty-three countries have better infant mortality rates.

    Our Health Care System is unjust. It is unjust in part for some of the following reasons:

    Much of the medical research in our country is supported with public tax money through the National Institute of Health Grants. At present, this benefits only those lucky enough to have “good health insurance.”

    Many of our hospitals were founded by the hard work of ALL citizens, not just corporate health care institutions. In the late 1800’s Catholic nuns from St. Louis hitched their horses to wagons and rode into the North West Territories armed with a Mission Statement from God to “cure the sick, care for the poor, comfort the dying” and built our first hospitals. They built these hospitals for ALL citizens, not just the patients with “good” insurance.

    Our health care system is unjust because patients of minority background get less care and inadequate care compared to white patients, based on evidence published in numerous medical studies. The same arguments which justified slavery as an institution in the 1860’s are used today to justify our current for-profit health care and health care insurance industries — “States Rights over Human Rights; we don’t want government telling us what to do; we can’t change our lifestyle and our way of life; we don’t want interference with our benefits; we don’t want you to interfere with our economy.” These statements are made notwithstanding the basic injustice perpetrated on others by our current health care system.

    Our Health Care System is unjust because patients are discriminated against based on their ability to pay. Some doctors and dentists will not see “No insurance / Self Pay ” or Medicaid patients, even though their degrees were issued by publicly funded medical and dental schools.

    Our Health Care System is unjust because Doctors charge different patients different prices for the same service based on their insurance or employer. If one would go to a gas station and be told that you have to pay $6 a gallon of gas but that your neighbor has to pay $3 because of who you work for — there would be civil war. But this is how health care is billed. Often the person without insurance is charged more for the same service.

    It is unjust because patients do not have the liberty to pick their own doctor. Every time their employer switches health insurances as a business decision, the employees often have to switch doctors. This is an inefficient system, particularly for those with chronic diseases, such as cancer, asthma, etc.

    Our healthcare system is unjust because of cost. A man showed me his mother’s hospital bill when she delivered him in 1937. For 5 days in the hospital, room, meals, nursing care and the delivery – $175. Today if you go to a clinic to get earwax removed by a doctor taking only two minutes – it costs almost twice that !!

    It is unjust because, although many of the discoveries of medicine were not the work of American Medical/Insurance Industry, the discoveries are then used to create private profit for our present Health Care System. For example, when the Austrian Pathologist Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Peace Prize for his 1903 discovery of the ABO Blood Groups which made blood transfusions safe, saving billions of lives, he gave his discovery to humankind, not a patent lawyer.

    Our healthcare system is unjust for the reason that people without health insurance just as likely had fathers and grandfathers who laid on the sands of Normandy and Iwo Jima, and whose sons and daughters are serving and dying in the service of our country today.

    Our health system is unjust because of huge profit taking. Health insurance executives don’t worry about going bankrupt from getting sick. Forbes reports that two large Health Care Corporation CEO’s made $121 million and $57 million respectively in the last five years. While The Medical /Insurance Industry, and Pharmaceutical industries make billions in private profits, our citizens are lining up at a county fair, in neglected health, with their teeth rotting from their heads, just to be seen once at a free medical/dental clinic set up in a barn with freshly swept farm animal stalls.

    Health Care is an essential human service which should be part of a public trust, not sold as a for-profit commodity. It has the same essentiality as Clean Air, Clean Water, Roads, Rivers, Police and Fire Protection and should be afforded the stature of Public control.

    I’ve often wondered why educated people and our leaders cannot see the injustice of our healthcare system. In a historical context however, it is inconceivable to think that the man who wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” could see his slaves working in his fields as he looked out his window.

    To right the injustices perpetrated by the British against his countrymen, Thomas Jefferson would write the words which lent justification and strength to his fellow patriots to fight the world’s most powerful army and navy. However, Jefferson’s quill had not the power to convince his countrymen to right an injustice perpetrated by themselves against another people. This would be a conflagration for another time, another generation.

    Let us encourage our congresswomen and men to have the moral courage to pass legislation long overdue, to create equality in health care. They should establish a national healthcare insurance plan as a civil right of American citizenship. Let’s abandon our current “Lobbyocracy” and create a true “Democracy.” They should forgo the influence of lobbyist’s money, and “establish justice and promote the general welfare” by creating a health care system that serves and cares for the people.

    Some say that we don’t want a Canadian or British style healthcare system. I say let’s make America’s healthcare system look like the United States space program compared to Britain’s or Canada’s! If we put our nation’s collective will together — Americans can do anything. Let us create a publicly funded national health insurance plan to restore to every American their dutiful respect and “unalienable rights.”

    Thomas Jefferson’s last words in the Declaration of Independence ring true today: “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

    Timothy Shaw, M.D. F.A.C.S.
    Fitchburg, Wisconsin



    • Kent Zavacky on December 13, 2010 at 1:13 am

      Thank you Timothy Shaw MD. So nice to hear from a doctor with courage, morals, and integrity speak out, and one who is not a puppet of the industry. So refreshing!



    • Shelly O on June 8, 2011 at 8:41 pm

      Dr. Shaw,

      Thanks so much for being the kind of physician who is in medicine for the right reasons and for enligtening so many with your opinion, your honesty, and most importantly the facts around how broken and wrong this system is. You’re an angel.



    • Sue McCormick on October 27, 2011 at 1:15 am

      Thank you. I am one of those uninsured/self pay that is denied treatment by doctors. I need surgery for spinal stenosis-my spinal canal is 5 mm is two spots when it should be between 14 to 17 mm-yet I can’t get anyone to see me without reviewing my case(one already turned me down) or they just refuse because I am self pay. I guess I will have to wind up on the ER with paralysis before anyone will help me.



  9. CH on January 10, 2011 at 3:42 am

    Can anyone please help me! I have said and had signs printed saying that IF YOU WERE INJURED IN AN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT THAT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT YOUR DOCTOR MAY LIE ABOUT THE EXTENT OF YOUR INJURIES SO THAT THE INSURANCE COMPANY WON’T HAVE TO PAY ON A CLAIM. My life has been hell since then. I cannot get medical care and am suffering greatly! The medication I’m being given for pain because of the injury sustained in an automobile accident has acetaminophen in it and I have liver damage. I written an account of what I’ve been going through and you can read this at http://thislittlelight21.wordpress.com
    If you can help me in any way please contact me as soon as possible. I have injuries that can be surgically repaired and I shouldn’t have to take the pain medication any longer that is killing me.



  10. John "Hai" Knapp on June 11, 2011 at 2:12 pm

    Sad story, US healthcare is definitely broken. Our so called “world’s best healthcare.” We are 37th; I fear it will get only worse. I absolutely sympathize with Sarah. We’ve got to do better than this.

    Until we finally have a single-payer HR-676 you may try to seek out the free clinic.

    I don’t have insurance, since my job at the battery charger manufacturer got yanked. It is not because I am too cheep to work. The rug got pulled out from under me.

    I don’t consult a doctor every time I should. I fear I can’t be insured again, since it happened while in my 50’s. Nobody wants to hire anybody in their 50’s.



  11. Bill M on June 14, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Ten years ago I looked after a 10 year old boy in a British A&E dept (ER). He had asthma and was experiencing a very bad asthma attack. He was American and on holiday with his American parents. We x-rayed him, kept him in overnight on a monitor and watched him and gave him frequent nebulised medication and discharged him the following afternoon with inhalers and steroids (all for free). They were insured but i doubt our clerical staff submitted a claim on their insurance and with ALL HONESTY, if they were uninsured it wouldn’t have changed the child’s treatment one iota. Healthcare, free at the point of need, the basic tenet of the NHS is such an honourable thing and reading Sarah S’s original plea at the beginning of this thread makes me so sad.
    That said, the NHS didn’t just spring out of nowhere, it’s based on a single payer (sort of) scheme that ran for 60 years in the very poor, heavy industrial town of Tredegar in South Wales before the NHS took over. This community of steel workers just “decided” to set up their own health service and employed their own Doctors and Nurses and built their own hospital – all this in 1890!! What’s stopping you USA…?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tredegar_Medical_Aid_Society



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