Jose Garcia's Story - "Because I am self employed, I can
Posted on July 4th, 2008 by Levana Layendecker in Tell Us Your Story
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I am a married father of one son. I am self-employed working as a mechanic.
I have a 7 year old son. My wife works at home caring for our son and volunteers in our community. As a self-employed person I am forced to figure out healthcare for myself and for my family. Purchasing healthcare coverage directly through the insurance companies is much too expensive and does not fit within our monthly budget as we have a mortgage. This leaves my self and my wife without coverage as our son is on a low-cost state plan.
Recently my wife became very ill with severe chest pains. She had not seen a doctor since we had no health insurance. We therefore decided to go into the hospital. We were at the hospital for about four hours. They ran tests but in the end they gave her a small prescription and sent us on our way. A few weeks later we received a bill for close to $5,000. We cannot afford to pay this much and have talked with the hospital who refuse to offer us an affordable payment plan. They have said if we do not pay they will take out a lien on our house.
Excerpted from California ACORN's compilation of Health Care stories. Download the PDF. (7.6 MB)
I thought if you make a monthly payment of say $20 dollars they can not do anything you are paying the bill. I feel they are trying to scare you Jose. I am not from California and maybe the laws are different but as long as you pay a minimum of 20 a month they can not do anything to you. at least I know that is how it works here in Wisconsin.
Good luck friend I know it can be hard at times and not fair at all.
I say just let God here you pray to him and something may happen.
Sincerly
Jim
Jose I am really heartbroken about your story. It's so sad how the world must suffer. It makes my post seem petty since its just me complaining about my tooth, when your poor wife can't even been seen without a 5,000 dollar bill slapped in your face and now they are threatening you about house.
I really hope things look up for you and your family!
Ashley
Hi Jose,
The hospital has to allow you to pay on a payment plan. I owed thousands of dollars also from multiple surgeries and it took me about 3 years to pay it off. Contact the hospital again and say that you want to sign up for a payment plan and tell them that you will pay $? a month, whatever you can afford. They will accept your plan and cannot charge you interest. Just be agressive and don't give up. It will all work out. Do not allow them to force you into taking a loan or anything else to pay it off. Of course they would love to have that money now, but they will take $50 a month even if it takes years to pay off. Good luck.
The hospital here is taking my brother to court even though they've been steadily paying at least 150.00 per month towards a 27,000 bill (1 day in the hospital, shunt and monitoring for a minor heart attack) They've even payed larger amounts when they've had the money. They have stopped cashing their checks.
So yeah, they can take you to court even if you are paying apparently
I had an agreement with GOD on how and when I would die,but under the obama plan,a government agent will now make that decision.Remember health care for ALL,even if it bankrupts the country. Allan Barney
Millions of people will suffer bankruptcy etc. because of people with your type of attitude. You DO NOT KNOW if it the country will be bankrupted, most people DO KNOW that thousands of people
GOD has nothing to do with this, so keep your arrangements with him out of it, OK? Religion is irrelevent in this discussion; it's about economics, profit, honesty life and death. Bush's little foray into Iraq didn't bankrupt this country, but you don't care about that do you? Hundreds of thousands of people have DIED in that war and you whine about Obama, a man who has been president of 9 months and who has gotten nothing but obstruction, lies and fear from your type. The insurance industry if not worth a SINGLE human life, the market be damned and your selfishness along with it. Cancel your medicare, it's socialism. Cancel your wars, it's socialism. Cancel your highways, they're build and run by socialists, like your schools and your parks: get this = public sector = socialism. Think hard. Public healthcare will not bankrupt this country - we're bigger than that; it's the small, selfish and the greedy like yourself who keep the world from moving forward. Stay healthy, I'd hate to have to pitch in to save your life.
To Bill Blackmon–I agree with you completely. My husband recently lost his job and all of his insurance.
He is a pharmacist and you would think that he could find a part time job really but he is almost 69. I am 66
and unable to work because I have multiple sclerosis.
We are both on Medicare and you would think our bills are taken care of. WRONG!!! We have to wait until the
January 1 date for drug coverage. Even then with a mortgage to pay(we can't sell our house in this economy)
we can't afford all of our medicine.
I want to see a lifetime cap on illness removed from
any and all policies. No one ever discusses this for people with rare diseases.
We are aganist the public option, we need tart reform in the in the medical insurance industry, no additional involement in our health care and no illegal aliens should be covered. Just improve our current system by cutting fraud in medicare, be able to buy medical insurance across state lines and the doctors not doing defensive medicine. Also the government not having access to our medical records.
What is 'tart' reform? What's wrong with the current tarts? I like lemon tarts, don't know about you. Medicare is not the problem, illegals are not the problem, the profit motive is the problem. I suppose it's alright for the government to listen in on our phone calls, have access to our bank records in order to stop 'terrorists' but not OK to coordinate medical records (a major cost in the health care industry) so your insurance company can squander billions of dollars moving pieces of paper around with all of the mistakes that are inevitably made on them? Get your priorities straight and don't get sick. It could take a lifetime for your insurance company your lifetime to get the paper in just the right order…..