WOW. I don't want to come off as an insurance company shill, as I'm not. Health insurance is a product one purchases, or chooses not to purchase. If you choose not to, well, that's really not the insurance company's fault. Had you saved the money, rather than paying the premiums, you'd likely have enough money to pay at least for your PT. Health care is not cheap. It is about to become MUCH more expensive, once the government is running it.

You chose not to purchase a product, and then blame the product you did not purchase.

And then, you call them "parasites"...check your definitions, YOU are the one who wants treatment, without paying for it.

If you are at a low income, their may be some medicare-type benefit you could get. I don't know, I've never personally applied for any social services.

What part of the country are you in?


EDITED:

Pretend, for a moment, that you owned an insurance company. Joe Blow doesn't buy any insurance, hurts his back, and pays a, say, $300 premium for the first month, then expects you to lay out $50,000 for a spinal fusion. Then he cancels his policy. You are out $49,700. How long can you afford to do that?

That's why the term "pre-existing condition" applies.

Should I buy this chick a beer and hope she gets drunker and I get lucky or should I save this money so I can send it to an insurance company and never see it again? It is a tough choice, but when you wake up with an incurable disease, you’ll know which one was the right choice.

those lucky enough to have insurance

Luck has nothing to do with it. I started a business, and work it about 10 hours a week, solely to pay health insurance for my family.

OAH: This seems unnecessary. We appreciate you chipping in with useful professional judgments, and it's tough to not get sucked into the rhythm of the flames, but would you have delivered this lecture to a patient?

Awe shit, you know what I mean. Maybe I should have said "fortunate" enough for clarity. There are those who work 60 hours a week just to FEED & HOUSE their family. I suspect they would feel lucky to have insurance.

Let me reiterate my original intent.

I'm paying my own way here. If anyone has had a similar shoulder injury, please give me a number so I can start saving up.

We all know how insurance works and doesn't work, so lets not make it a disscussion about insurance.

I'm not missing your point; however, I think you have missed mine. Consider yourself lucky, fortunate or creative. I don't care to argue it.

I hope you have read the fine print and are covered if/when you should happen to get hurt climbing.

You know, I could afford super cheap insurance but for the kind of care I would get it wouldn't be worth it. I know from my own experiences. Everyone agrees that insurance-for-profit is a huge problem but they keep throwing their money at it for some false sense of security and in doing so they are perpetuating the problem(s) with our healthcare system. By not paying for insurance I'm choosing to take more responsibility for my own health than you are. You pay for insurance to cover your ass, you want them to take the responsibility when you bust it.

Go back to your "secure" little suburb and continue to live your "secure" but ignorant life. If you wake up with an incurable disease I hope you realize that your insurance would find a way to bail on you and you'd be SOL. So do yourself a favor and take some fucking responsibility and don't rely on insurance to go through with their end of the deal.

Oh btw, congratulations. You are the new dick of this thread.

Buying insurance is not about free health care, it is about sharing risk between you and the other people who buy the same insurance policy.

But I still think it's a bit much to expect a doctor to know about something so rare (1 in 40 million!) and to recognize it.

Failing to recognize it, to me, is not necessarily dumb. You can't know what you haven't learned. We all try to fit the world into our own existing framework of knowledge. Especially something like MS, which can have various presentations, and is probably not really one disease, but several.

Who do you think should pay for your medical costs?

Because neurosarcoidosis manifests in many different ways, a diagnosis may be difficult and delayed

There is no known cure for the disorder. Treatment is indicated if symptoms are severe or progressive. The goal of treatment is to reduce symptoms.

Even if I saved everything I had after paying my minimum expenses, it would take years to save that kind of money. Some people don't have the luxury of having money to save, like my parents who can't even pay for necessities even though they are both working. They don't live in a nice neighborhood or have new cars or waste money on shit either. My mom works for the gov't and makes minimum wage. She had to go to mexico to get an operation done because the same operation with her gov't funded insurance would have cost her 3 times as much as the trip to mexico and the operation combined.

You know, I could afford super cheap insurance but for the kind of care I would get it wouldn't be worth it. I know from my own experiences. Everyone agrees that insurance-for-profit is a huge problem but they keep throwing their money at it for some false sense of security and in doing so they are perpetuating the problem(s) with our healthcare system. By not paying for insurance I'm choosing to take more responsibility for my own health than you are. You pay for insurance to cover your ass, you want them to take the responsibility when you bust it.

Good, if you're "taking responsibility for your health care", WHY are you whining here? Sounds like now that you're hurt, you want SOMEONE ELSE to pay for your surgery.

Your mom makes minimum wage working for the gov? What gov job pays minimum wage

Look, my wife and I chose to finish college and work a few years before we even considered kids. We paid our own way through and I worked midnights for a while to get it done. We BOTH have good insurance now. If others chose to not get a good education, breed like hamsters, and live paycheck to paycheck, guess what, there's a consequence. I take it your parents are both at least in their 40's, how in the world does neither of them have a decent job? Choices we make, and it seems you're following in their footsteps. Wake up before it's too late, or you'll be in their shoes before you know it....

It's sad to see so many people defending a predatory and corrupt system like the insurance/health care system. But i guess we do the same with our political system as well.

Also kind of amusing to see how many people think we have 'quality health care' in any sense of the word.

So um, through Aetna, I buy insurance.

It's $92 a month, has a $3000 deductible and after that everything is totally covered.