When most people think of the phrase, Cost of Living, they think of how much it will cost them every month to pay their bills and still be able to live their lifestyle at their standard of living. To pay their rent/mortgage. To put food on the table, etc. But for someone who has a disease such as cancer, Cost of Living takes on a whole new meaning! You can be sure that once you’ve been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease such as cancer, there will be people ready to take every cent they can get from you under the guise of prolonging your life. I won’t even go so far as to say, “quality” of life, but I will get to that in a bit.
I am one of those people who feels like I am living in the wrong century. My ideals really fit better in the 19th century than they do now. Medicine is one of those things that from everything I have seen and read seems to have been handled better back then. Back then you could call for a doctor in the middle of the night or on a weekend and they came and took care of you. They cared about your health because they were a part of your community and they didn’t try to ruin you financially over your health. In fact it seems most traded with the very people for goods/services they needed. Sure, we have more advanced medicine and technology, but the humanity is gone!
In my opinion medical care should be a non-profit organization. When you’re not motivated by profit and greed you can focus on the patient and not their insurance card or savings. But that’s not what we have these days. We have hospitals that are the very epitome of corporate greed. This was never more evident to me than when I started looking over the EOB forms from my insurance carrier for Wendy’s Breast Cancer treatment. We haven’t even received everything up to this point but I was amazed at what I saw.
When she had her surgery she was in the hospital for two nights. The cost of just the room itself, was $62,130.42! That’s nearly half the cost of our house and more than both our cars put together! That was a staggering realization. Now this is before whatever comes off due to insurance, which we don’t know how much that will be and how much we’ll be responsible for. But even setting that aside that is just plain ridiculous!!!
And looking at the various charges from the EOB (Explanation of Benefits) forms just made my eyes water. Below is a screenshot of what we have so far, again, not knowing how much of this we’ll be responsible for. And it is unclear why certain things show up multiple times (duplicates?), but this is what I pulled from the various forms. The total so far comes to more than $74,000 and we still haven’t received everything yet, nor has she started chemo.
In doing my research and trying to get help for her on the staggering cost of this we were referred to many different charities that help women with cancer. One day I called several places and the response was mostly the same; they were unable to help at this time due to one of the following reasons:
- Out of funds
- They never returned my calls
- We didn’t live in the right county
- Wendy is too old
- Wendy wasn’t working at the time of her diagnosis
I’d love to specify and mention a few that gave me a load of BS, but that’s not the point. The point is that help seems non-existent. Short of those who have donated, we’re on our own. And since Wendy is unable to work we’re getting by (barely) on my income with no margin before the diagnosis. And the other night I was given a cost estimate for the 5 months of chemo that Wendy was recommended…$15,000/month!!! That’s $75,000 for 5 months!!! So this may very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back folks.
Make no mistake…cancer is big business and there are people out there who specialize in capitalizing on your misfortune. Check out this article. It’s an eye-opener. And if any of you out there know of any resources we haven’t looked into that could help out, please let us know! We’ve tried everything I can think of so far. That can’t be it.
Comments from the old website.
