Hey Modbloggers, a member of the BME Family is ill and needs our help.
Ari Larratt is living with her mom, Rachel, in the US and has come down with some kind of illness that is making it hard for her body to digest food. As it stands right now, she’s going through a lot of tests to find out what is wrong, and the medical bills are already starting to pile up. Now because Ari is living in the US, everything is coming out of pocket from both Rachel and Shannon. The bills are already approaching $7000 and they still have yet to get a diagnosis.
So, to help raise funds for Ari, Shannon has designed a brand-new BME logo shirt. It’s going to be sold in the BMEShop for a limited time, with all proceeds going to Ari’s medical bills. The design itself is basically an updated take of Scott Fox’s original BME logo, mixed with the Calm logo, and incorporates modifications that weren’t around when the designs were originally created.
You can order the shirt right here. We’ve set the price of the shirt at $20, with the option to donate more if you wish. We’ll also be sending along a bunch of BME stickers in addition to your shirt, depending on how much you are able to give. But even if you aren’t able to give any extra, just getting one shirt will go to help a sick little girl get better.
Also, if anyone has any information on health insurance plans for children only, please get in contact with Rachel via the BMEShop e-mail address ([email protected]). Her insurance won’t cover Ari, so she’s looking for a plan that is just for children.
BME/News and Modblog highlight only a small fraction of what
No hospital anywhere in the US can refuse treatment, regardless of ability to pay. They will, after the fact, attempt to collect. But they will work out payment plans, or forgive the debt entirely, depending upon the ability to repay. In many cases, the payment plan price, even for a major procedure, is still less per month than insurance, since you’re only paying for what /did/ happen, not what /might/ happen.
That said, reaching out to the community is the best way to go. We wouldn’t have made it through hundreds of thousands of years as hunter-gatherers in small bands, if it wasn’t human nature to help each other.
For detailed insurance information, it will be very state-specific. You can’t buy insurance across state lines in the US (one of the major reasons that it’s so expensive), so insurance plan information really needs to come from a source in the same state. Many of the small business advocacy groups have deals with insurers, which can allow their members to purchase insurance at reasonable rates. Since BME is a small business, as far as I know, that may be a viable path to take.
As a Brit it is difficult to believe that such concerns regarding cost come before the treatment. Nye Beven is indeed someone we should be eternally grateful to.
I have just tried to make a donation and buy a shirt but I only have a debit card, are there any other ways of paying or donating other than with credit?
Cost most definitely comes before treatment under the NHS. That’s what the rationing that exists, represents.
If I need to go to the hospital, I can walk into one of the best hospitals in the world, and I will receive prompt treatment using the latest in medical technology. No one will ask if I can pay for it, until after it’s all over and they send me a bill. Therefore, my ability to pay will have no bearing on medical decisions, because they won’t even know whether I have a million dollars in the bank, or not a penny to my name, until after I’m treated.
“Close enough for government work” is not a phrase that any doctor should ever be uttering…
You receive a bill? How quaint!
Yup. I pay it, too. It’s amazing what it’s like, when one lives as an adult, and takes responsibility for one’s own life.
Wouldn’t it be great if children could be diagnosed for an illness without the need for a fund-raiser? Or where one could leave a hospital with the peace of mind that they no longer have to pay a penny?
There is a reason why the US healthcare system is rated 37th in the world. No parent should have to worry about the cost of their child’s healthcare like this.
It is a shame that there are no other methods of helping other than with a credit card.
Flint, I suggest you take some time to research the meaning of “living as an adult” in the various societies around the world.
They involve any sort of stuff, from eating and washing rituals to dances to skinning carcasses.
They include fighting other people, getting married, painting, talking with deceased relatives, dancing, smoking cigarettes and being able to buy beer.
Tattoos and mods are often part of the whole thing, as still is, sadly, genital mutilation.
In my country, “living as an adult” means working a job and paying taxes, so that the basic services are made available to everyone.
Healthcare is seen as a basic right that should be equally affordable to the multimillionaire and to the homeless.
Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but the whole point of this arrangement is that the multimillionaire pays, like, a lot of taxes, so that the same treatment can be given to a dozen of hobos for free (I don’t think hobos file tax reports) without having to hurt the hospital’s finances.
We as a country think this is very important, and it’s specifically stated in our Constitution.
What’s more, we believe that we are sufficiently rich as a society to be able to give healthcare and food for free for those who need it, and we believe that this is the measure of a society.
These are the values of my country.
I respect the American values, but I beg you to pay the same respect to my country’s ones.
Hence, I suggest you abstain from this kind of sneery remarks.
Thanks.
(…and, I’m not even getting started with my own take on the subject, which would probably sound as “stalinism” to you.)
And BTW… PayPal?
PayPal has long been an issue and unfortunately we’re not able to use it.
I don’t think anyone said anything about denying treatment but rather that they’ve already racked up a lovely bill and have yet to find out what’s wrong. I know they were back to the doctor again today. The bills keep piling up.
I am grateful that I only have to worry about medications in my country not whether or not I can afford to pay hospital/doctor bills. I know way too many American friends who have said they simply couldn’t afford the cost of a visit to the doctor so they don’t go when they probably should.
@Giles: they /can/ be diagnosed without a fundraiser. No hospital in America will refuse treatment to anyone, regardless of ability to pay.
And no, seeking “peace of mind” by forcing others to pay is not “great.” Adults accept reality, rather than expecting someone else to pay to provide them with a false sense of security.
Most of the medical equipment that you take for granted (which is nowhere near the quality that we have in the US, anyway) was developed here, because there was a market. Without free market healthcare, there would be no advanced diagnostic machines, robotic surgery assistants, and the like. Complaining about the free market, while taking advantage of what it has produced, is nonsensical. Without folks who were willing to pay fair market prices for doctors’ services, which let them invest in research, you’d be going to the barber to get leeches applied.
Healthcare in the US is only rated 37th, by those who rate specifically based upon lack of socialism as a criteria. The other common numbers are highly distorted, like life expectancy. Remove deaths by violent crime from all the numbers, because violent crime is not the result of the skill level of doctors. Remove early infant mortality, because doctors in the US /try/ to save many babies who would be written off as impossible to save in almost any other country, and adding a bunch of zeroes to the math really drops the average dramatically. Do the actual math and use honest numbers, and you’ll find that those who live under the healthcare system in the US are among the healthiest, longest-lived in the world. Yes, we pay more than you do. And we get more, too.
@spaghetti eater: I can respect your desire to see that everyone get quality healthcare; I have the same desire. I cannot respect your methods in seeking to achieve that goal.
If you want to pay something to help others get healthcare, I will thank you for doing so. If you want to encourage others to do the same, I will thank you greatly for your activism.
But the moment you say, “let’s have armed men enforce this,” you’ve poisoned the process by introducing violence against innocent people who did nothing to deserve it. The minute you start talking about enslaving the unwilling, you’ve lost any respect I would otherwise have for you.
@Jen: I know there are folks who claim that they cannot afford to go to the doctor. I expect that they believe that because they have been told it by interest groups who like spreading that lie. But it is a lie. Oh, you can’t expect a doctor to see you just because you want to be seen, but if you show up at a hospital with an actual need for treatment, you /will/ be treated, anywhere in the US.
Even many elective procedures are available free or at vastly reduced cost, if one can demonstrate need. A friend went in for an IUD, showed them how low her income was, and Paraguard sent a $1000 IUD for free. The same goes for prescription drugs, etc. And, aside from the companies, themselves, there are plenty of charities that will help. If I take my kid to the hospital, I’ll pay all that I can, but if I cannot pay the whole amount, they have donors who have supplied them with funds to be used to offset or eliminate the bills to those who have need. And that’s at one of the top (and, therefore, most expensive) hospitals in the country.
Flint, you are wrong. An emergency room is only required to “stabilize” a person presenting themselves: they are not required to treat you for the illness. If I were uninsured and went into the hospital with severe stomach pain, they might do some x-rays and make sure I wasn’t exploding, then they would give me pain meds and refer me out to a GI Doc. If I couldn’t pay that doctor, I would be screwed, and still on the hook for the ER charges.
I do have insurance, and in my case I have gone into the ER with severe abdominal pain. They gave me pills and sent me home telling me to go see my internist the next day. They are NOT required to treat you. They are ONLY required to stabilize you. Please, please stop both spreading misinformation and also using that misinformation to try to “prove” some philosophical or political point.