The cost of health care.

I have been pretty quiet during all the health care debates.  I will say that I agree with parts and disagree with others.  Health care reform is such a huge undertaking that it is difficult to agree with every area of it.  Also the new guidelines about mammograms says the under 50 group has too many unnecessary procedures and medical bills. 

Many of you know that in October I had to undergo more testing to make sure a new lump was just fatty tissuse and not a new tumor.  I also had to undergo testing with my gyno to make sure the tamoxifen wasn't causing other cancers to form.  So over the course of 2-3 months I had bills to my oncologist, the labs, the gyno, the breast cancer center/hospital, the radiologist (x2) and the pathologist (x2).  Now the cost of all this is still much cheaper than going through treatment again but it is still overwhelming.  The kicker for me is that we have insurance.  But I still have to cover the deductible and the co-pays etc.  Plus my medication costs currently just doubled and my premiums are going up. 

I know people who have no insurance and didn't have to pay a dime for their treatment or the surgeries, follow-ups or even other non cancer related meds while going through treatment.  So finianically it has had little to no impact on their lives.  But those of us who have insurance are now finding ourselves struggling.  The economy does not help but the medical providers want their money from those of us who they think have it!  We don't have it.  At least not all of it to all of them at the same time!  I know of women with insurance who are having to sell off everything they can and have fundraisers to help pay of the medicals because the providers want it now.

Christmas will be very slim at the Poole house because we need to make the payments on the medicals and everything else is getting so spendy.  Now I know my kids would much rather have me healthy and with them at Christmas than have presents but how can I not feel bad that we are stuggling in part due to my medicals...