$23,924.88

[Mean Morone]

Back in the days when I was self employed, I had no insurance. My first major deal was having a fishing pole flip me in the eye. Direct hit. My eyeball filled with blood and I couldn't see. My dad took me to the emergency room where they wanted to give me an eye test. I told them that the reason I was there was because I couldn't see out of that eye. They still made me go to a line(they had to lead me to it) and read an eye chart. I just looked at them and said "I cant see". They all laughed, yes laughed, and joked about how bad my vision was. The doctor came in and put some numbing fluid in my and and checked it out. He looks at me and says "you better go to an eye doctor in the morning", gave me some tylenol 3 and sent me home. After a long night of pain and zero sleep, my dad takes me to an eye specialist who takes one look at me and sends me to the hospital. I spent 1 week in the hospital 3 days of which I had both eyes patched and slept at a 45 deg. angle. The pupil in that eye no longer works and I had a catarac for almost 30 years before having it fixed a few years ago.

My other major deal was when I broke and dislocated my elbow. The break happened right next to the joint and the joint dislocated toward my sholder. I go to the emergency room where the doctor tells the nurse to give me a shot. He comes back a few minutes later and starts twisting on my arm. Yes I screamed like a little girl even with valium in me. He stops and tells the nurse to give me another shot. He comes back a few minutes later and starts twisting my arm again. Yes I screamed like a little girl even with valium and morphine in me. The Doctor looks at me and tells me they are going to admit me. All night long I'm getting shots in my rear end to kill the pain. The next morning they take me to surgery room where they set my arm. The doc tells me that he had to go and look up in the book how to set my arm. Only one in a thousand breaks happen the way mine did and he didn't know how to set it. Three months of theropy and five different bills later and my arm is ruined. I can use it but can't turn my wrist and cant straighten it out. The hospital messed up on my billing and sent me five different ones. It took me quite a few years, but I got it all payed off.

Having gone through all this, it's nothing compared to what Elwood is going through. Even with what I went through I still wouldn't want any goverment involvement. More red tape isn't going to make things any better. It's still(Or was) the greatest health care system in the world.

[kydonky]

Back in the days when I was self employed, I had no insurance. My first major deal was having a fishing pole flip me in the eye. Direct hit. My eyeball filled with blood and I couldn't see. My dad took me to the emergency room where they wanted to give me an eye test. I told them that the reason I was there was because I couldn't see out of that eye. They still made me go to a line(they had to lead me to it) and read an eye chart. I just looked at them and said "I cant see". They all laughed, yes laughed, and joked about how bad my vision was. The doctor came in and put some numbing fluid in my and and checked it out. He looks at me and says "you better go to an eye doctor in the morning", gave me some tylenol 3 and sent me home. After a long night of pain and zero sleep, my dad takes me to an eye specialist who takes one look at me and sends me to the hospital. I spent 1 week in the hospital 3 days of which I had both eyes patched and slept at a 45 deg. angle. The pupil in that eye no longer works and I had a catarac for almost 30 years before having it fixed a few years ago.

My other major deal was when I broke and dislocated my elbow. The break happened right next to the joint and the joint dislocated toward my sholder. I go to the emergency room where the doctor tells the nurse to give me a shot. He comes back a few minutes later and starts twisting on my arm. Yes I screamed like a little girl even with valium in me. He stops and tells the nurse to give me another shot. He comes back a few minutes later and starts twisting my arm again. Yes I screamed like a little girl even with valium and morphine in me. The Doctor looks at me and tells me they are going to admit me. All night long I'm getting shots in my rear end to kill the pain. The next morning they take me to surgery room where they set my arm. The doc tells me that he had to go and look up in the book how to set my arm. Only one in a thousand breaks happen the way mine did and he didn't know how to set it. Three months of theropy and five different bills later and my arm is ruined. I can use it but can't turn my wrist and cant straighten it out. The hospital messed up on my billing and sent me five different ones. It took me quite a few years, but I got it all payed off.

Having gone through all this, it's nothing compared to what Elwood is going through. Even with what I went through I still wouldn't want any goverment involvement. More red tape isn't going to make things any better. It's still(Or was) the greatest health care system in the world.

And this is why we need limits on medical malpractice suits. Some slick attorney would take this and try and sue the doctors and hospital for not rendering proper treatment.

This is also a good argument why we do not need any regulation for people to buy health insurance. If the health issue is severe enough, after the doctors and hospitals take you to the cleaners the good ole Medicaid program will kick in and the tax payers will finish picking up the tab. In the mean time we can all save $450.00 bucks a month.

[RoadToad]

And this is why we need limits on medical malpractice suits. Some slick attorney would take this and try and sue the doctors and hospital for not rendering proper treatment.

You want limits, OK, but you don't have to be a "slick attorney" to see the red flags in that story. The doctor came right out and said that he didn't now how to set that kind of fracture, AFTER he had tried to do so several times, basically admitting to malpractice right there. Then when he did set it, he did it based on "looking it up in a book?" Holy Crap! And his story about "only one in a thousand breaks happens that way" makes a nice story, but I wouldn't buy it. When you've gone to 12 years of school after college, you're supposed to be prepared for those unusual cases. Since Malone can't use the wrist properly, you have to wonder if either A) it never did get set properly, and/or B) the doctor's prior failed attempts at setting it without knowing what the hell he was doing caused further injury. Malone, did you ever contact a lawyer about this?

[walkeraviator]

I work for a competing company with Air Evac, so I will try to refrain from bashing their company, but there are indeeed some things i can clear up. It is not price gouging. Air Evac charges a fair amount to make a profit, just the same as Air Methods and PHI do. You have to remember these things... they have to pay for:

Pilot 24hours a day 365days a year. With FAA duty requirements that maeans two pilots a day who make $30/hr or so.

Then you have a Flight Nurse and a Paramedic for 24 hours/365 Days.

The helicopter itself costs money. A Bell 206 - $500k. An A-Star - $1-$2.4 Mil. EC-145's can run up as high as $7mil.

The Bell 206 that Air Evac flies burns about 28 gallons per flight hour. Thats about $120/hr in fuel alone. Then there is the maintenance (helicopters are inherently more labor intensive than airplanes). Then there is insurance on the aircraft, malpractice insurance on the crew, a dispatch center, paying the bills for the Base that the crew stays in, etc. It adds up.

To give you an idea of how much these companies actually make, it takes a comapny operating a twin engine helicopter like a BK-117 needs about 30 flights a month to break even... and that is if they get paid out for the flights. Air Evac, in their antique 206's break even if they make 12 flights like this one a month.

Im not saying that healthcare costs arent expensive, but I just wanted to clarify that those of us who fly patients dont price gouge. As a matter of fact it is rare to make it into the black as an individual base. If you want to look it up, Air Methods is the largest EMS carrier in the world and is a publicly traded company, so you can look up how much money they make.

I feel the insurance companies are the ones who should be getting the heat here.