Not a Good Day

Today is not a good day to be Case. He had four shots, including the flu shot, and a finger poke to draw 2 small viles of blood. The blood test is to test for lead levels.

Just out of curiosity, I inquired about the cost of the blood test in our visit to the Lab. The lady looked it up for me and quoted, "$173." THAT is what is wrong with the health care system. C'mon, does it really cost $173 to put a drop of blood on a slide and look under a microscope? And, good news for you Iowans under the age of 6, the lead test is now a state law and is required before attending any Iowa school (or home school, or private school). Let's see, $173 times 37,866 kindergarten students (check out the DE website statistics page) equals $6,550,818. That's a whole lot of money to you and me.

Now, I'm all for people making money, please don't get me wrong. So, let's say there's a 50% markup on the test, like in retail products. So, $86.50 is gross profit to cover expenses like the lady who took the blood. Incidentally, she was also the same lady who was the receptionist (that's multi-tasking and keeping expenses down). The overhead of the building is worth something, too. Now, I'm fairly sure that the 180 seconds we saw her in the blood-drawing room will be covered by that $86.50 and then some.

I'm not sure how OBama or McCain or any of the other legislators are planning on attacking the health care "crisis" we supposedly have (for the record, I think of a crisis as "a condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political, or international affairs, leading to a decisive change" and it's obvious that we can all obtain adequate health CARE...perhaps not affordable insurance, which is something other than a health CARE crisis....rather, it's often a lack of priorities to allocate a portion of one's income towards pricey premiums), and I'm not for price regulation, but there's gotta be something that can be done with regard to medical prices. Can't they post a menu or something of their prices online? We choose our doctors...in this case, I didn't choose the lab, but if I had a choice, could I see the prices first? Does it take all of us to start questioning our doctors about what they're charging and why?

I know that in a few weeks, I'll start getting my insurance "This is not a bill" bills that will give me a heads up for what our portion will be, and I'll still stand amazed with it in hand, thinking, "How can that cost so much?"

Incidentally, the four of us girls all got flu shots, too, and suddenly, I'm feeling a little tired! Clearly, it's affected my thinking!