As I have said recently, I suffer from Crohns Disease, and had my first relapse recently which meant that I was hospitalized for 2 nights.

I was admitted as an emergency patients as I had been throwing up and having tummy pains for 3 days. Before I went to the hospital I called the insurance companies 24 hour nurse line to make sure they thought I should go and to get pre-approval.

In the ER department I saw the admitting doctor, and was given a CAT scan of my tum to confirm it was the Crohns. I was also given morphine for the pain.

Whilst in hospital I was on an IV line to keep hydrated, and received anti-coagulant drugs to stop developing dangerous blood clots. It turns out I had a narrowing of the small intestine, and some food had got stuck in the narrowing, which was backing everything up in the same way that road maintenance does when they are working on the motorways. Basically we had to wait for the blockage to pass naturally without me eating or drinking.

The bills have been outrageous – $15k for my 2 nights in a shared room, and then additional bills from the radiologist who reviewed the CAT scan, and from the various doctors I saw whilst in hospital. So far I have written checks for over $1500 and the bills are still coming in.

So what is this rant about? Well my health insurance is over $450 per month. It’s a company wide policy and we all pay the same premium. That coverage is just for me, my wife is on a policy from her employer. This is the first time that my Crohns has flared up, and I now seem to be better thanks to the advice from my Gastroenterologist and injecting myself every 2 weeks with Humira. I could easily be in remission from my Crohns for the next 10 years plus. Apart from Crohns I am in good health, and drink little and don’t smoke. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels are all perfect.

Today our office manager instant messaged me to ask me if it would be possible to change my coverage so that I can be on my wifes policy as the insurance company is raising our rates to over $800 per person per month because of me. Talk about moral blackmail – either I get covered on her policy, or all my colleagues end up paying an extra $350 per person per month to get the same coverage as they do now.

We are in a lucky situation, we both have good jobs and our employers both offer health insurance (although mine are trying to push me out). We can afford to pay the money that the insurance companies don’t cover, but what about those people less fortunate than ourselves?

At work some of my colleagues are quite Republican and think that the health insurance system in the USA is fine as it is and does not need reform. They have swallowed the FUD from the insurance companies about how people have to wait long times for treatment in Canada. What they fail to comprehend is that everyone gets treatment and no one is bankrupted due to health costs. They long wait times alluded to are often outright lies.

As a contrast to the US system I would like to tell you about my father. He will be 80 in October and lives in England, and got an appointment with a cardiologist who advised that he needed a pace maker. When he asked when the operation could be done he was told that they could do it the next day, but should wait until Thursday as he needed a few days off of a drug before the operation. He had the operation 4 days after his consultation, and they fitted him with a $20,000 pace maker. His total bill was $0. He never had to speak to a billing department and never received a bill from his cardiologist, the surgeon, the hospital, the anaeseologist or anyone. All covered by the National Health Service.

I can’t compare my coverage to other countries in the world, but comparing my experience to my fathers I would much rather have a government run health care system to the profit orientated system that the US has at the moment.

It’s amazing how much the insurance system now controls my life – I can’t ever hope to become self employed as the insurance companies can either deny me coverage or charge me an extortionate fee, and you need health insurance to live in the USA (even though 47 million people are). If I move to a new company the insurance companies can increase the premium, making life harder for me. (See here)

Comparing the US system to the rest of the world has been done many times before, Michael Moore did it in Sicko, and PBS did an excellent comparison of 5 industrialised counties systems compared to ours that I recommend people watch.

So now I am stuck – if I stay with my current policy it is going to cost everyone in the company more, and if I move it will likely cost everyone in my wifes company more.

It’s a no win situation, and could end up with us having to eventually move back to England.

Recently I was hospitalized due to a partial obstruction of my small intestine caused by my Crohns disease, and it has given me an insight into the health industry here in the states, and proof of how important insurance is. (It also is why there have not been updates to my site for a while.

It seems that when your insurance claims reach a certain amount they get denied whilst the insurance company reviews them, and I have managed to reach that threshold (about $10k).

What’s amazing though is when you see the amounts being claimed. When I went to hospital I went to the ER department, and saw the doctor who decided to admit me. That was about 11pm. I was admitted at about 8am having had a CT scan, and stayed 1 additional night.

The bills are starting to come through now. Each dept will bill separatly, and I’ve only had a few bills so far.

CT Scan: $3,600
MRI: $5,900
Hospital stay: $15,000
Follow up appointment with Gastrenterologist: $250

So we are already well over $20,000 without all the bills. My treatment was complete rest with no food or drink for 2 days, on a saline IV line to keep hydrated and some anticoagulants to stop me getting dangerous blood clots.

Whilst my treatment was good, I don’t feel it was any better than I would have got on the NHS, and I was sharing a room with someone else.

So how much would something serious cost?

I’ve just bought a new video camera, and thought I would post a quick video of Moses loving the snow as a test.

If you have a problem viewing it get a good browser such as Firefox, or click on this link.

So it seems that six UK ISPs are now doing the dirty work of the BPI and MPA, and stopping people from downloading files.

There needs to be some sort of balance.

It seems that many people feel entitled to downloading music and movies for free, which is something I disagree with – artists need paying for their work – the terms of this new deal are not consumer friendly.

On the other hand artists feel that they should get paid for their work in perpetuity, which I strongly disagree with also. There are also the media cartels that feel free to stuff the crappy formulaic music down our throats.

If this is so important to the BPI and MPA, then they should be the ones doing the education, and prosecuting downloaders in the courts, but they must have solid proof of infringement.

You also have to understand that big media is scared – suddenly people are free to choose what they listen to and what they watch. For years they have controlled content, releasing and deleting to suit their schedules. Those days are over, but they still want that control.

If I bought a CD 20 years ago, but can no longer listen to it, according to them I am a criminal for downloading it online, even if I can’t buy a replacement as the song is no longer published. This is clearly wrong.

So what can you do?

Don’t use any of the following as your ISP:

BT
Virgin
Orange
Tiscali
BSkyB
Carphone Warehouse

They sold you an internet connection with blazing fast speeds, but just want you to check your email and browse the web whilst they sell you their own media.

Also resist buying music that comes laden with DRM or helps support the big media. Instead try eMusic or similar services that will sell mp3 files with the bulk of the money going to the artist rather than some music managers coke habit.

Don’t buy CDs that is on labels owned by big media – if you like an artist see them in concert instead.

Support organisations working for you:
Open Rights Group

What can big media do? Release the back catalogs online – if a song is not financially viable enough to be published anymore at least make it available for fans – and please do not load it with DRM – it just pisses off consumers who want to be customers and makes them more likely download illegally.

What can artists do? Stop be greedy. Sure, it must be nice to still be paid 50 years after releasing a song, same as it would be nice to be paid 50 years after doing a real job. And now they want 95 years! Anything more than 15 years (which is what pharmaceutical companies get for new drugs) is hard to understand really as it stiffles creativity of other artists.

When a drug is no longer protected more people can benefit from its effects. The company who developed it will generally have made enough profit from their limited monopoly to finance the discovery of future drugs. Indeed, the loss of exclusivity makes finding new profit sources essential! If patents lasted as long as copyright I can imagine a large drug company sitting on its collection of “popular” drugs and feeling no need to innovate.