Earlier this year, back on March 13, I found myself lying on the floor at a fast-food restaurant in Milford. There were several people standing around me telling me just to “stay down, help is on its way!”
I had evidently passed out as I was having breakfast and had fallen out of my chair, and had caused quite a commotion in the restaurant.
I felt no pain. I knew I wasn’t hurt. I was more embarrassed than anything. I just wanted to get my 71-year-old body out to my car and go home, but the manager said I couldn’t leave until the ambulance came.
I laid on the floor for about 30 minutes until an ambulance arrived from Houston and the crew helped me onto a gurney and drove me five miles to the hospital.
There I was unloaded by the hospital staff and admitted to the emergency room where I stayed for the next six hours to be eventually told to go home, get some rest and take it easy.
About two months later, I received a bill from the hospital for $5,500 and a bill for $941.60 from ambulance accountants in New Castle.
That is about the same price I would be charged for a first-class airline ticket to Los Angeles! At least there I would have been served drinks, dinner, seen a movie and been given some slippers and a pillow from a flight attendant! For the five-mile ambulance ride through Milford ... nothing! No emergency bandages, no oxygen, no meds, no ice!
I know I am not the only person who is shocked and flabbergasted by the medical prices in America today, but like many seniors on a fixed income, I don’t want to used up my life savings on medical expenses either.
I have written all three of my federal representatives and now it looks like millions of people will lose their health insurance with a big, beautiful bill, but until we all raise our objections to the cost of medical care, this will just continue.
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