To help stem the rising costs of healthcare, many people believe patients must come to appreciate that healthcare is expensive.
The most common way to get the point across is through patient co-pays for routine visits to the doctor or hospital.
For a lot of people a $15 dollar co-payment is manageable, maybe even an afterthought.
But as part of New Hampshire Public Radio's Profile in Health Series, Dan Gorenstein spoke with a woman for whom a $15 dollar co-pay is anything but manageable.
Wanda DeNutte does things for a reason.
She works as a housekeeper at the private Tilton School so her boys can go tuition free.
Her plan paid off this spring when her oldest son graduated from the prep school, and enrolled at Temple University in Philadelphia.
In exchange DeNutte has vacuumed, mopped and swept the old brick buildings on campus for the past 10 years.
But DeNutte hadn?t bargained for the wear and tear on her body.
Like when she shoulder started hurting.
Track 2
:15 to me I just wore it out. I think I wore it out during that two weeks of cleanup when the kids left at the end of May, and we got into scrubbing walls. b/c you scrub walls for three days straight, and that?s one movement up and down with your arm. I think I just overdid it. and I never went to the doctor for it, and I never let up, which I should of....I just kept using it, using it, and using it.
The pain didn?t go away.
It got to the point where she says, she couldn?t turn the steering wheel of her jeep.
It?s not as though DeNutte didn?t have health insurance.
But she looked at her budget, and with her husband out of work, she decided she couldn?t afford the luxury.
Track 15
:00 ... I wasn?t going to spend $15 on a doctor?s visit on myself, when he is out of work, and I am trying to pay all the bills on one income. That was the way I made my decision. To wait. As soon as he got a job, the first week he got a paycheck, is when I made my appointment.
DeNutte?s doctor turned around and sent her off to physical therapy.
She was not thrilled.
Track 7
:00 ... I checked with my health insurance on pt. And I know how pt likes to have you come back, and back, and my insurance, I have to pay a co-pay every time I go. $15 dollars. So, as soon as I went in there, I told him, don?t expect me in here, 3-4 times a week, b/c I?m not doing it. I said I have a $15 dollar co-pay every time I come here...i am not going to waste my time, when they don?t even know if it?s going to tell. So we went from there.
DeNutte returned to physical therapy twice after that.
She reports after doing her exercises at home over the past month, her shoulder is getting better.
But she still can?t reach up into her cupboard and bring down a big bowl.
To DeNutte the whole healthcare industry is little more than an unfair system that leeches money from her bank account.
Track 16
1:16...i like the way Canada has health insurance. Everybody has health insurance. It?s like the gov. controls the doctors, the hospitals, and so much probably comes out of there pay, I?m not sure how it works, but everybody pays like the same amount, and gets the same care. I kind of like that idea. Where nowadays everybody?s got all different care. It?s almost like the poor people have better care than I have.
There?s more behind DeNutte?s feelings about the healthcare system than her experience with a bum shoulder.
DeNutte is still dealing with an unpaid hospital bill from a few years ago.
The doctor said her husband needed a procedure.
The DeNutte?s said they couldn?t afford it.
The doctor said he?d do the work for free, and he did.
But the hospital continues to send her a bill for nearly three thousand dollars.
Track 17
2:35 I don?t like getting it in the mail all the time so I just really throw it away. I don?t have money to send my kid $200 out to Philadelphia I certainly aren?t going to give it to them. My kid would come first if I had the money.
Her child is going to have to come first this spring when he turns 19.
That?s when his Healthy Kids health insurance expires.
DeNutte guesses his health coverage will cost about one hundred dollars a week.
And that will be a big bite into the family?s income.
4:44 if I have to pay out $400 dollars a month, I would do it. That means sacrificing other things...I would probably have to sacrifice my house for one thing. If I didn?t have the house payment, and taxes and all that, it wouldn?t affect me as much. And I work 40 hours a week. And I don?t get anywhere. I never get ahead.
DeNutte?s experience mirrors that of American writ large.
In the past ten years, healthcare has consumed a larger and larger percentage of the GDP.
And the more Americans spend on healthcare, the less they spend on anything else.
For NHPR News, I?m DG.
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