Sunday was a big day for me. Not only was I visiting South Carolina’s Darlington Raceway — one of NASCAR’s most historic racetracks — for the first time, but I was also picking up my “hard card,” an annual NASCAR credential that signifies you’re a garage regular with an important role.
It’s my first hard card after following the sport for 16 years. Even though it’s just a piece of plastic, it means I belong.
But my day ended before it ever began, and I didn’t see a single lap of the race. Instead, I ended up in the Darlington medical center.
Let’s rewind to pre-Darlington. I live in Texas, but I was in Charlotte, North Carolina for the grand opening of Ten Tenths Motor Club, a new club track across the street from where NASCAR competes at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Ten Tenths is a joint project between Speedway Motorsports, which owns and operates Charlotte Motor Speedway, and Rick Hendrick, who owns the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR team. They brought me and a bunch of other media out to see the facility and watch Historic Trans-Am racing, as well as see two Mercedes-AMG Project Ones within feet of each other at the Heritage Invitational car show. It all rocked.
My husband and I decided to stay after the Ten Tenths programming to visit the Goodyear 400 at Darlington for the first time, because historic NASCAR tracks have an atmosphere to them. I’ve seen Darlington’s tarsnakes and red-and-white walls on television for years, but to witness them in person feels historic. We wanted that.
We rode to Darlington with our friend JR Houston, an engineer for the 23XI Racing NASCAR Cup Series team, and his father. The plan was to enjoy the 400-mile race, film videos and take photos for media coverage, then pack up and leave once JR’s team finished the race and wrapped up. (I’m putting the photos in this story so you can see how good of a job my husband did.)
The race started at 3:30 p.m. local time, and we got to the infield when the garage opened at 11 a.m. so JR could work. That gave my husband and me time to run around, see our friends, tour the track, and experience something new. But I never got that far.
Just after noon — three hours before the start of the race — illness hit me like a frying pan. I lost my lunch. My breakfast. My everything. It felt like an exorcism. I threw off my hard card, which I’d had for about 30 minutes, so none of the upchuck would hit it. I stumbled out of the bathroom and asked 23XI for some nausea medication, which they kindly gave me. It stayed in my system for 12 minutes before shooting out of my nose.
I couldn’t hold down water, food, or medication. I had the shivers. Any time I stood up, I immediately collapsed back down. I was so dizzy and disoriented that at one point, I needed a place to sit while outside and plopped down behind a generator spewing hot exhaust on me. I didn’t realize until two very kind medics came over and pulled me up.
It’s been years since I felt ill enough to seek urgent medical care. Part of that is because I live in America, and my bar for seeking medical care is high. Part of that is because I just don’t get violently ill very often. But here I was, in Darlington, violently ill.
Then I remembered my hard card. NASCAR’s infield care center, where drivers go to be checked after certain severities of wrecks, was open to me with the hard card. It’s a service from NASCAR, and the staff would be there to respond to routine and urgent needs through the weekend. I’d sent my husband off to take photos and video during one of my breaks in pain and suffering, but called him back over to walk me to the care center.
It was like one of those scorching desert scenes in a movie, where the main character is dragging their feet through the sand while dehydrated and hallucinating. I was so disoriented that I dropped a full bottle of medicine and didn’t notice until I reached the care center and no longer saw it in my hands.
The care center administered fluids and nausea medication through an IV, which was the first thing I could keep down all day. They allowed me to stay in a medical bed as long as I wanted, and when I decided to leave, they took me wherever I needed to go on a golf cart.
The medication wasn’t a permanent fix, and I’ve been varying degrees of “stuck in bed” for three days. The only NASCAR action I can recall from Darlington was zombie-walking from one infield building to another during the race, seeing a sliver of cars go by in the distance, and thinking: “I guess I’ll have to watch what happened in this race next week.”
I don’t know when I’ll go back to Darlington. But I do know that possessing a NASCAR hard card — a dream I’ve had since I was a kid — now has a double meaning for me. It means that an hour into having one, I was able to seek urgent medical care without thinking: “How much will this cost me?”
And that, honestly, got me through the day.
Longtime NASCAR fan near Richmond track: at least at Richmond, they have on-site medical staff for fans, and as far as I know it’s also free
Reminds me of the time I came down with norovirus. 4:30 at work in the office, and something felt off, so I left a bit early. I walked in the door to my house 15 minutes later, said hi to the family, and walked straight to the bathroom. I didn’t leave the bathroom for two hours, during which time I’m pretty sure every liquid in my body left me. I wasn’t able to do more than sip water and moan for the next 36 hours.
That was miserable, and that was in the comfort of my home! I can’t imagine getting noro/food poisoning at an event… must have been awful. But hey, you have a story now!
Reminds me of when I got hit by a norovirus. People don’t believe me when I say I wasn’t even holding onto fluids long enough to warm them up (it was a one-way trip and it’s an odd sensation, let’s leave it at that…)
This was also the time where I was so desperate for carbonated fluids (they just seem to sit better when I’m sick) that I drank tonic water out of thirst . It was the first thing my body held onto. It was as if my body said “wait, we recognize this! It’s missing something (gin), but we recognize this!”
Darlington can get pretty brutal with our heat and humidity, among a couple of other things. Thankfully you got the care you got and if you feel like you really are going through the wringer, you have McLeod Regional within half an hour away in Florence just in case
Luckily that “hard card “ gave you access to free medical care a normal fan probably wouldn’t have gotten .
So glad you are feeling better. Food poisoning is the one time that I’ve been hospitalized for multiple days. It was truly horrible.
The state of health care in the US is mind blowing to me. It used to be that people could at least claim it was good care you were paying insane amounts of money for. I was in the ER with a buddy yesterday who fell while attemping to load a motorcycle into the back of a moving truck. He fell off the ramp, and the bike hit him on the way down. We walk in, he struggles to breathe deeply, has intense pain, can’t move his arm, and is bleeding from the hip. Wait time was 2 hours to be seen. What if one of his broken ribs (he has 3) had punctured a lung or something?! They didn’t even look until the 2 hour mark. It’s freaking ridiculous.
Next time have him say he he’s having trouble breathing. That usually gets their attention.
I live near one of the premier medical facilities in the US and go there once a year for a fairly unusual medical condition. It used to be that after my appointment I would walk out to the nurses’ station and they would make me an appointment for the next year. Then they stopped doing appointments that far out, but a few months before the next year I would get an appointment letter in the mail. Then they just stopped making a new appointment altogether and I had to remember to call before my prescription ran out.
This year, I sent in an appointment request and was denied. They could not make me an appointment at all because they had no openings in the window where they could make appointments. I mean, it’s not urgent, but I need to come in once a year to get checked out. Just make me an appointment, I don’t care how far out it is. Instead I’m on a waiting list, with no indication of how far out it will be.
Luckily for routine stuff I go to the local medical chain and they can generally get me in without too much trouble. It’s just insane that the big place charges me over $500 a visit after insurance, and still can’t figure out how to do appointments properly.
I’m sorry to hear about that. It just doesn’t make sense how costs can keep rising exponentially, while quality of care degrades equally fast.
It makes perfect sense when you put “for profit” over all else.
Soon “healthcare” will simply be all your money for a single used, too small bandaid or a half tablet of generic aspirin.
Having a registered nurse at home (husband) is a savior. We have medical supplies for emergencies like IV and different kind of medicine, I learned thanks to him how to do CPR, shots, IVs, when to take what medication, etc. We get a lot of medication from Mexico too since its cheaper and you don’t need a prescription for a bunch of things.
He will be participating in the medical center during the Grand Prix in Detroit, in case you go and get sick lol and I will be watching the race 🙂
I know it’s none of our business, but it sure sounds like food poisoning. Here’s hoping it’s all behind you now. May I go off on a tangent and call out that amazing throw back livery on the Wood Brothers #21 Mustang? It was the same color scheme as Jim Clarks Indy 500 winner. Ford should offer that green and yellow on every Mustang across all the trims.
That’s not the right thing to focus on I know, but dang, you’re husband knows how to shoot pictures.
Real glad to see your byline here and I hope you feel better!
🙁 do you know what caused this? Hopefully it doesn’t happen again.
Oof, sorry to hear that, Alanis, but it’s also great to see you back at Jalop….The Autopian! I had food poisoning once from crab legs at Red Lobster about 40 years ago and I still can’t face crab legs without feeling sick. In fact, just reading your story made me feel a bit queasy. It’s the worst. Hope you’re feeling better!
Mussels, in Istanbul. Sick for a full week. Taught me the real meaning of real, actual, food poisoning.
Seafood poisoning is the real deal. I actually wished for death.
i didn’t, but honestly thought I was about to. However, I came back from the dead in lovely Kas, and all was forgiven, if not forgotten.
It is sometimes surprising what help there is at large events. One night at Fenway Park my companion developed a burst blood vessel in her eye, after trying to track down our eye doctor – he is a friend who would not be too bothered by an 8:00 pm text – we went down to the medical center where we found multiple health care professionals, including a full-on Emergency Department doctor. After a short wait he gave focused attention and after double checking nothing else was wrong confirmed that this sometimes happens and not to worry it will clear by itself. No charge, no need to show insurance card, fast efficient service – all good. Of course if you had to be transferred to the hospital I am sure there would be the usual headaches, but if you could be treated in the park all was good. The moral of my story is that if you have an issue seek out the medical center – it might be a great experience.
One of those things I didn’t know is high level soccer. We have a friend that has a son that is a MD that is working through his residency. At the hospital, there is a list to sign up for interns to get free tickets to high level soccer games to sit in the front row, if they are willing to be a stretcher carrier. There was an international game and my wife and I have pictures of our friend’s son carrying a “hurt” player off the field from an ESPN broadcast. Every single person carrying that stretcher is a MD and the proud dude in front with the giant grin is my friend’s son.
I figured it was just some random slobs that they rounded up from the sidelines.
You know Alanis, when they brought you on last week, I doubt this was the content they were expecting.
Regardless, great article.
Hunter Thompson’s stuff has gone full suburban.
Am I the only one who thought the topline was a setup for a piece-length screed about Denny Hamlin?
I’m kidding of course, and glad you’re feeling better!
I’m just glad you got better.
I’ve injured myself a number of creative ways and thought I was going to die more than a few times, but the time I wanted to die the most was when I got Norwalk (I think—ER told me it was that or food poisoning, but that Norwalk was going around and I’ve had food poisoning before and it wasn’t as bad). Blasting out both sides, every joint hurt, going from sweating to freezing and back multiple times in an hour. When I reached a point where I thought things had calmed enough, I drove myself to the ER (in damn Christmas traffic) and the IV made a big difference, though I was past the peak at that point. Feeling sick is the worst. I get debilitating migraines. I can generally kind of zone out the pain, but the ones that are accompanied by nausea are the worst even if the pain isn’t as acute. That pass sounds awesome, if an unfortunate way to explore the breadth of benefits. Hope you feel better!
Did you mean “norovirus?” It seems autocorrect has gotten worse over the years…
Yeah, it was the norovirus, but that wasn’t an autocorrection on my part. I think Norwalk is a specific strain named after the town in CT where I assume it was thought to originate as that’s what they called it, at least in the early ’00s. Maybe it’s one of those things where they started calling it something less specific? I’m (too) old, so my terminology is probably outdated. It only lasted about a day and a half, but I’d still rather just die than go through that again.
That bug is nasty enough, it doesn’t need the distinction of naming different strains
I feel the migraine thing. Used to get 2-4 per month. I’m down to maybe one or two big ones per year. Thanks, Cannabis!
I’ve gone through several things that only worked for a few years. Excedrin Migraine worked OK for a few years, then acupuncture for about a year and a half, magnesium supplement for about a year, and now Sumatriptan works better than anything before.
I got a prescription as soon as medical was an option in MA. Cut my headaches down drastically within months and damn near eliminated them within a year.
There are literally four dispensaries in my town of ~7000 people, but only one pharmacy.
I’m in MA, as well. I have no interest in trying marijuana, but I’m glad it works for you. People who haven’t had them often think they’re a bad headache, but it’s more like (is?) a nervous system issue. I get a foggy head, sometimes nausea, extreme light sensitivity, and the headache generally feels like my (usually left) eye is being pressed into my socket, so I have to rest my head with something under that temple, which means I get sore at some point from being on my side so long as an attack usually lasts about 24 hours. Other people lose vision (that only happened to me once, when I was a kid). My migraines went away during the several decades that I had PTSD, but returned after I completed therapy for it. They say that stress can be a trigger and I wonder if the stability of my perpetually heightened state of stress kept them at bay.
When I get a full-on one, there’s nothing I can do until it passes. Darkened room. Can never find a comfortable position or temperature.
Stress definitely makes them more likely for me. I’m pretty good at spotting the signs of one coming and can often fight it back with a large amount of ibuprofen if I catch it early enough. First sign is usually neck stiffness for me, oddly.
With the Sumatriptan, I don’t have to get it early, which is a welcome change from anything else and I find myself taking far fewer pills. Part of the problem is that I get a lot of false-start migraines where it feels like one might be coming on and, since I don’t like taking too many pills due to potential liver or stomach damage, I had to consider whether or not to take the pills though they might not be needed or risk missing the window for taking them. Sometimes, nothing is stopping them, anyway, though the Sumatriptan seems to knock down the severity of those so that the window where I am useless is smaller and regular pain killers seem to reduce it a little more.
Glad you’re feeling better – damn. 😮
I used to travel a lot (globally) for work, and now I am retroactively super grateful that nothing like this ever happened to me.
(I was grateful before, but upgraded after reading about your ordeal. To reiterate: damn.)
I once got kidney stones while traveling. Still not sure how I made it through that flight home. (Probably tequila)
I can confirm, kidney stones are way beyond any other kind of pain.
I remember driving to the ER at a hospital 10minutes from me, and I had to stop in a parking lot to throw up from the pain, then in the ER after they gave me some serious painkillers I could see & hear myself screaming in pain, but couldn’t stop, it was like watching someone else doing it.
I should mention I’ve had quite a few gnarly accidents, including open bone fracture, but none of that even comes close to the kidney stone pain.
I was traveling with a coworker. I made him pull over four times on the highway so I could vomit.
Pointless trip. I spent two days eating advil in a hotel room and then flew home. I couldn’t focus long enough to book an earlier return flight, and if I was dying I wanted to get home first.
Here to confirm. There’s “passing a stone” pain that’s sharp, stabby, and uncomfortable. Then there’s renal colic, which is when the kidney gets blocked. I’ve broken stuff (ankles, ribs), injured knee MCL, Tendonitis, smashed digits — which is incidentally #2 on my list of painful episodes, but renal colic is a whole new universe of deep, scary, amazing pain. And the puking, omg the puking.
I’m a frequent flyer, five stone removals so far. Did the ultrasound treatment, two basket removals, one laser shockwave treatment, but the kicker was when the docs poked a hole in my back, reshaped part of one kidney to fix a congenital defect, vacuumed any remaining stone debris out my kidney, and sent me home a few days later with a tube sticking out of my back.
Removing the tube at home was a weird experience. Doc said “just pull it out gently and put a bandaid over the wound.” He was right, but pulling 6+ inches of tubing out of one’s guts is a VERY strange feeling.
When I got to a doctor, he rushed in with the Xray results saying they’d have to operate immediately because it was 25mm. Then he came back in the room and said it was fine to pass because it was actually 2.5mm.
Never noticed anything come out but I figured it could have happened without me noticing. About a year later, I unexpectedly passed an 11mm stone. I don’t know where that sumbitch was hiding for a year, but wherever it was it wasn’t causing the same pain it had originally until its very disturbing journey to the outside world.
My kidney stone story is actually a UTI. My dad had kidney stones regularly. I was in my mid-20s and had burning, cloudy pee. I called dad and he told me to go to the hospital. Instead given the crap insurance I had, I went to an urgent care, where they prescribed a ton of Sulfa and told me that they feared I might have a Kidney Stone but it might be a raging UTI.
I called my dad to ask about how to know if it was a kidney stone and not a UTI. His response was “if you are curled up in a ball crying, it’s a kidney stone.”
A thing about my dad. He hated Novocain. He refused to let dentists use it. He even had fricking root canals without out. And this was the guy telling me that he would curl into a ball and cry for a kidney stone. Scared the hell out of me.
Fortunately, it was a bad UTI and not a kidney stone. Unfortunately, I’m allergic to Sulfa and I found that out the hard way. But that’s another story.
Glad you are feeling better. Do not discount the heat. During my 30 years in event security I have seen similar situations. Your heart rate is up, the sounds , the visuals are on high. I suggest no caffeine and hydrate prior to event. Stay self aware and keep your laminate in a safe place.
Sounds like food poisoning, which can come on instantly with the most acute symptoms. May you never experience it again.
(I guess you could at least count yourself lucky that you weren’t required to commode simultaneous to the upchuck. That’s really fun.)
It was so intense. Felt way worse than the food poisoning I’ve experienced. What a trip!
Mine was a bad can of tuna. It came on so fast I couldn’t believe it. One minute I was cheering the Bulls, three minutes later I was crawling to the bathroom. The instant fever was the weirdest part. I went to 103 in those same minutes.
I should fairly say that within three hours of expulsion I was feeling better. Three days would have been rough. Sympathies.
I’ve found I’m more sensitive to food poisoning than I used to be, after a bad experience with a tuna salad sandwich, a hot pickup cab and massively insufficient ice packs. That was in my late teens.
We were poor and had no insurance, so I spent three days on the couch not able to hold down crackers or even water. Probably nearly died from the dehydration. It’s a very good thing you got proper care.
Now at the slightest hint of bad food, my body gets rid of it in a hurry. Before that I had an iron constitution. (And I’ve lost my appreciation for tuna salad sandwiches.). Perhaps you are also developing a greater sensitivity.
So glad it didn’t turn into a major issue for you!
I had the simultaneous version of food poisoning a few months ago. I’m just glad that the toilet is situated so that I could upchuck into the bathtub. After the first upchuck, no more solids were available to loose so it all went down the drain.
Glad you feel better and that you are contributing to this site!
I get nauseous watching NASCAR too but for different reasons.
Hahahaha I love NASCAR
That completely sucks, but a silver lining that it happened in a place with both good and FREE medical care! Did they ever figure out what it was? Food poisoning? Glad you weren’t on a plane (BTDT).
Having gotten my professional start in the health insurance industry 30-odd years ago, the entire state of health care coverage in the US is *completely* offensive to me (the COST of healthcare in general too, but each drives the other). It is an industry that simply should not exist in any meaningful way. And I worked for a non-profit – I can only imagine the shenanigans that the for-profits were pulling in those pre-ACA days of old. Sorry for the rant, but this gets me VERY rationally angry, especially as I have experienced first hand how it works in civilized countries.
I worked in health care in the US on the supply chain side for 15 years and agree, the whole damned thing is broken. I got out of it and am much happier.
Same. I feel like had I stayed in that mess longer I might well have pulled a Luigi. I only spent two years there and it has left a foul taste in my mouth ever since.
Yes! Huge silver lining! They can’t test there, so they could only estimate. I assume it was extreme food poisoning. Never had it this bad before!
Hope you never do again!
Glad you have joined us in Autopia, and glad you are on the mend.
: )
“ I was able to seek urgent medical care without thinking: “How much will this cost me?” “
That is a heartbreaking thing to read.
I genuinely don’t understand how a country as wealthy as the US, which is an amazing place in so many ways, can’t find a better solution to health care than charging sick people for treatment. The NHS may be under funded, over crowded and plagued with huge waiting lists, but when I’ve been hit by a car, or hit by another car, or hit by what we thought was cancer but turned out to be just a bum kidney, or when my wife nearly severed her thumb, or the years of treatment while my parents were dying, we never had to worry about the cost.
Saw this today:
“The US is the only country I know of where regular folks fight against things that would actually help them – like free healthcare, free college, and fair work conditions – just because rich people have convinced them it was bad.” – @kazeecomedy
After I moved to the US from Europe, when asked about my degree I would tell people here I got my 5-year BsC absolutely free, and I could tell some of them would not believe it for a second
You have no idea. It’s bad. Basically, we’re all just one calculation away from being worthless. That calculation is essentially, which harm is greater, seeking treatment or not? It’s worse if you’re a parent with financial concerns. If you’re not wealthy or lucky here, you sort of permanently live under a sword of Damocles.
Oh, and if the police injure you, intentionally or not, fuck you, you’re paying for it, not them.
Not all, and that is the problem. Just enough too many are privileged to have really good health insurance provided by employers. Of course, that means you are at the mercy of your job – another thing the rich assholes absolutely love. And at the end of the day, the real motto of the United States is “I’ve got mine, F you”. Especially when the have-nots are not white and at least middle class.
Though even there, who you work for matters. I work for a smallish company, 100 or so employees. So we are at the mercy of the “small group” insurance market. I have *fantastic* health insurance by US standards. Zero deductible, small copays, really minimal BS – I have no fear at all about going to the doctor. But my out of pocket for it is $800/mo. That is on top of the much larger amount my employer pays, we have a 70:30 split. And NO employer contribution for spouses or kids, so you better hope your spouse has good insurance. It’s fine if your single, they pay well enough that I don’t really care. But my housemate has basically identical coverage through a large Fortune 200 company – his cost per month? $150. His employer gets a MUCH better deal covering 150,000 employees than my company gets covering 100. But even with excellent coverage, I have still had the fun of the insurer deciding after the fact that what my doctor did was “medically unnecessary and sicking ME with a three figure bill. Which thankfully my doctor ate. It wouldn’t have been a big deal for me at all, but that is a privilege in and of itself. Some would be choosing between paying it and paying rent.
And the big problem is just enough people have this kind of coverage, and then buy into the FUD spread by the powers that be about how much worse it would be with single payer. “long waits”, “death panels”, all that crap – as though health insurers don’t already do all of that and far more, while charging you up the wazzoo for the privilege. And thus nothing ever really changes.
Preach!
I work for a large-ish company. I pay $500 every 2 weeks to cover my family. First $5k comes out of pocket, then I pay 20% of what’s left until I hit $10k. Given my medical issues, I’ve hit the out of pocket max for 5 years straight.
And then there is the fun of getting insurance to pay. My pain doctor had call in to insurance to explain why procedure XYZ was medically required. Everyone on the call other than him was a CPA not a MD. I didn’t get the procedure.
Even when approved, things get turned down. That piece of paper that says I’m pre-authorized for procedure XYZ? I’ve learned to scan it and keep it handy. It’s very commonplace for insurance to refuse to pay because they say “this needs prior authorization”. So I e-mail them the document they sent.
Yeah, it’s just a complete and total shit-show all around. And that’s with decent insurance. I really feel for people with the crappy plans. And pre-Obamacare, it was much, much worse.
Nice to see you here, BTW.
For me, private insurance was a lot better before ACA. But for people like my sister that has never successfully kept a job where she reports to a boss, it was a disaster. Now with ACA, she can at least get affordable health insurance.
With your health issues, absent the ACA you would be rather screwed today.
There is really nothing that the ACA took away, if your insurance got worse, that was an employer’s decision to save money.
I had neck surgery in 2012. $250. Had back surgery last year. $10,000. I was paying $100/paycheck for insurance now I’m pay $500.
My company blamed ACA for the price jump. Each company since has raised prices and reduced benefits as well.
I’ve heard it was the “unlimited max payments” instead of the old “$1 million max” that lead to the price change, but I suspect it was nothing but corporate greed across the board.
It’s everything. Inflation alone means that the cost of care goes up every year. But greed is rampant on the provider side too – and then there are the drug companies… Basic medical care should not be for-profit anymore than police and fire departments should be for-profit. If you want plastic surgery to make your moobs bigger/small, then sure, that can be for-profit. But not back or neck surgery.
And then add in our insane medical malpractice environment in the US. Doctors are *human*, yet they are held to an absurdly superhuman standard. Mistakes happen. But we punish with absurd settlements, and lawyers get rich. this causes a massive increase in costs though CYA that insurance has to cover. And malpractice insurance itself is insanely expensive because of the legal environment – and every level of healthcare has to carry it. I don’t think malpractice should be a thing absent provable malice or egregious incompetence. It sucks that bad things sometimes happen to nice people, but that doesn’t mean it should result in a multi-million-dollar payday. Especially to the *family*. If a person is accidentally injured and needs life-long support, that’s one thing, but the grieving widow getting rich is something else entirely.
The whole system is absurd from top to bottom, and we all pay for it.
Nobody is asking the right questions on the system. They are asking “How do we pay for it?” and not the deeper question of “why do we pay for it?”
There are dozens of countries with medical systems of every flavor of how to pay for medical care. The one constant is that it’s cheaper.
A coworker needed a physical in Qatar (long story involving a cultural aspect of the Middle East I didn’t know about). Full Physical without any insurance at a for profit place was $23. The facility was as nice as any urgent care. I had to wait for him and there was all this “oh it’s going to take forever, we are busy” and it took less time than it takes to see my GP on a normal day, nevertheless a busy one. Doctor came from the same medical school as one of my doctors (a place in India). So, why the vast difference in cost and time?
The answer is simple. GREED. And most of it not by the doctors, nurses and the like.
LOTS of people are asking that question, and the answers are well known. But there is too much money being made to change it is the bottom line. As you said, it’s all just GREED at the end of the day.
Don’t get me started on the nice racket the AMA has going by limiting medical residency slots.
This. I was living in Alabama when the ACA kicked in. In our open enrollment meeting the company rep said they the large cost increase was forced by Obama. There was much murmuring in the room by the vast majority of the employees that did not vote for Obama.
Turns out that the company actually used that year to change the company / employee split from 80:20 to 70:30 and blame Obama.
Bingo! There WERE theoretical cost increases because ACA forced a minimum level of coverage – for example, plans have to cover mental health. But mostly it was as you say, an excuse for companies to blame somebody else for their own cheapness and greed.
NONE of this should have anything to do with your employer.
Completely agree that whether or not someone has access to medical insurance (or a retirement account) should not depend on their employer.
The recent stock market madness thanks to Trump should convince absolutely everyone that privatizing Social Security is a *spectacularly* bad idea.
While I agree with that I was specifically talking about IRAs vs 401K.
If one’s employer chooses to provided a 401K you can put in up to $75,000 per year into a tax sheltered account ($31,000 employee + $44,000 from the employer)
If one’s employer doesn’t provide a 401K then you are stuck with a IRA with a cap of only $8,000 per year.
How does that make any sense?
If you have so much money that you can afford to put that much into a retirement fund, it’s really the least of your worries either way.
I’d say the difference between being able to save $8,000 and $31,000 a year in a retirement account is pretty big deal – and one that effects the middle class.
I’m the first generation after the death of pensions so I’m basically 100% responsible for my retirement. I started saving 15% out of school into a 401K when our household income was right on the median at the time. Really no choice if we wanted to actually retire. We have added to that over time as pay increased instead of letting lifestyle creep eat up those raises.
I’m as old as you are, I suspect. I have plenty in 401K, and just as much or more in real estate. I couldn’t afford to save anything for many years, making it up now in my peak earning years. I figure my best investment was paying off both houses at a more reasonable age than most, and I bought them VERY right.
But ultimately, while the tax advantaged nature of IRAs and 401Ks is “nice”, it’s really not that necessary. Even without it – if you can save and invest anything like that much annually you would have a nice retirement regardless. For people below the median today, they pay so little in Federal tax that it really doesn’t matter much, and those of us who make a relative lot are income-limited out of most of the savings anyway. And the way that capital gains tax is currently structured, if you have very little income in retirement, you will pay VERY little in capital gains tax on your investments anyway, so it becomes pretty moot whether you pay tax now or then. Of course, that is subject to the whims of the Oval Office and Congress, so who the Hell knows what the situation is going to be in a decade when I am actual retirement age.
My mother is living a Golden Girls best life here in FL in a modest condo on less than $2K a month in income and quite modest savings. Social Security and an annuity. I could easily do the same. Literally, since her condo actually belongs to me, LOL.
We know EXACTLY what the solution is and how to implement it. But that would make a whole bunch of rich assholes a lot less rich. So we do almost nothing. And the current rich assholes running the show in Washington rolled back a whole bunch of things we did manage to do, and want to roll back even more.
The revolution cannot happen soon enough. But at the end of the day, just enough people do actually have decent enough health coverage and care that the assholes stay in power. And of course, it’s one of those things you don’t really think about until you need it, and the vast majority don’t REALLY need it until they are old enough to qualify for our actually quite decent single-payer national healthcare plan – that only covers old people.
It truly is extraordinary how the right (aka rich assholes) has managed to brainwash people into thinking things like universal healthcare are bad for them.
My parents love Medicare – and hate the idea of a single payer program that covers everyone.
The cognitive dissonance is real. Sigh.
The worry makes many of us avoid care we desperately need
Since becoming an independent contractor for the first time, I have had to read more than I ever wanted to about different types of ACA health plans and how screwed each one is. I eventually settled on an HMO (after being initially warned about them on The Drew Carey Show) from the University of Michigan that has decent coverage without draining my bank account. Unfortunately, none of my previous doctors are in network and the plan is being discontinued at the end of the year. But that’s John six-months-from-now’s problem.
Why do I love Canada? Lived in the US for a couple of years and had decent health plan. Interviewed with MS and turned down the offer because the HMO had a hard cap and I’d developed a chronic illness that could have easily exceeded the cap in less.than a year.
Glad you got some decent care. I had food poisoning once and it was hell for two days.
John, if you are incorporated, have you looked into getting a one person group policy? It may seem oxymoronic, but it is a real thing in some states. However, it’s also a long shot idea, as the ACA does try to push sole proprietorships into the individual market and so it’s gone away in some states.
My point is the small group market may be available to you and as Kevin BR well noted in his reply to me above, the small group market is usually one tier less expensive than the individual one. It’s my opinion that the difference can even make setting up otherwise uncommon business structures just to lessen the cost of health insurance worthwhile.
The sad part is the situation you are in currently is FAR better than what existed prior to the ACA. It really was a massive improvement – but never forget that it wasn’t the best law – it was just the best law that could get through *Congress* against a massive lobbying effort to keep it from happening – and to kill it ever since. It’s a miracle that it even exists.
Personally, I don’t care who works on me, as long as I can get SOMEBODY to work on me in a reasonable timeframe when I need work done. Which is a whole ‘nother can of worms in this country, General Practice being the least sexy, most thankless, and one of the lowest paying medical specialties.
One of the reasons I can’t watch local news is that I might blow a coronary if I have to ever see another story about bake sales to raise money for surgery treated as heartwarming. It’s not heartwarming. It’s deeply fucked up.
I’m in a better position than most to blow a coronary because I have good insurance through the hospital where I work. It won’t bankrupt my family. Remember when we had a GoFundMe here for Torch because his aorta decided to pop right at the deductible rollover, meaning that his family was going to get hit with the deductibles for the prior and upcoming years at the same time? Holy shitballs, we can afford to bomb and supply bombs to half the planet but we’re ok with having our citizens go bankrupt because they suffered a medical emergency.
Free Luigi. My family used to suffer from United Healthcare, so I feel fine saying that.
Sounds awful and although there’s no good time to get sick like that, being in a place where proper medical care was nearby is far from the worst time. I’ve had a NASCAR Hot Pass a couple of times in my life and it’s a blast. Hope you get back on your feet soon and have another chance to experience the race up close.
Thank you : )
I think Alanis probably had enough Hot Passing for one day. Ye gods, I’ll be remember to be extra grateful next time I’m at a track in good health. Glad you’re doing better.
: )