Chill’n, B‘cause exercise works!

Thank you Estes Park for sending us your “Cold Front!!” I’m on vacation! Hello? Keep the cold winds on your side of the country, please! I’m just kidding, but not really! We’re “Spring Breaking” in the Bahamas this week and believe it or not, the front that we barely missed leaving Denver has caught us a few days later here in the Bahamas. We’re fussing, but not too loud considering that we can still wear our bathing suits while the “said” front hits us in the Bahamas. But, thanks anyway! You could have kept it to yourselves; we all know that Estes needs more snow, so take it back, now!

So, what’s the scoop? Why is it that every time we plan, pay for and go on a family trip one of our kids gets sick or needs to go to the emergency room? My daughter, has had held this title the last few vacations, but this year it’s my youngest son is keeping us grounded. Without failing the Holmes have visited the local medical facility!

Very interesting situation this time around because it was actually free! My jaw dropped when the nurse (who was the only medical person available) explained that all children seen at her clinic were free of charge. I know that nothing is “free of charge” particularly medical care, no matter where you are visiting! After discussing this issue and trying to talk her out of the “free” care (yes, I’m a little crazy) she allowed me to make a donation for all the medications and time she spent with us. In “American terms” she gave me and spent around $250.00 (my guess by American medical cost standards) worth of medications and expertise. I walked out of the clinic saying to myself, “this can’t be right!”

I’m not going to use my article to debate the need for a better understanding of medical care issues/costs and I’m not supporting that the Hope Town Medical Clinic is correct in offering free care to all children (even for those visiting from another country), but I will say that it was a relief to know that it wasn’t going to cost me a fortune (to be billed in the future) for my kids’ bad ear and throat on this special vacation!

It’s a national issue, when going to an Emergency Department (room) becomes the most expensive medical obligation that a family might face with-in a year of healthy living. For as healthy and active as we (the Holmes family) live our lives, we too have had to visit the E.D. about once a year. I cringe every time, debating (and losing sleep over) whether or not to delay care for my child or for myself until the next Monday morning, knowing that it’ll cost me much less to see our favorite physician as to going in on a Sunday afternoon to the Emergency Room which is an automatic expense much higher in cost.

So here I am, with an expense of zero dollars to have my kid comfortable and healing with the correct prescription, that anyone could prescribe as the first round of treatment. I don’t know! I throw my hands up! I’m on vacation and I am thankful for nurse Peggy, in Hope Town!

I’ve paid the emergency bills numerous times, both local and afar (it’s all about the same). I continue to debate what’s wrong with the system? I understand the costs of health care, but I don’t understand that when you live in the most medically advanced country, that an emergency/vacation visit costs so much (for an ear ache), just because I choose to pay for health insurance and its all going to my deductible? If I chose to not have health insurance: believe me, the cost “out-of-pocket” would be much less than what insurance payers pay! There is something wrong with this picture! The cost of care should never interfere with a mother’s decision whether to seek medical attention for her child, whether it is a Sunday afternoon in the U.S. or a Tuesday morning in the Bahamas! When I’m I America it interferes with my decision!

I don’t know the answers to our medical crisis here in America, I have no answers and now I ‘m going to get off this political/medical rampage and tell you something that I do know and I know as a fact! If you and every other person on this continent walked and/or exercised every day! The United States of America would not be in the health crisis that it is today! Exercise is the key to lowering health care costs on a national level and everyone (whether you pay for health insurance or not) can help with this epidemic. So now I’m chill’n because I know that exercise works!!

 

Deborah Holmes

April 7, 2009