Treating Themselves

Thank you: I have never personally e-mailed an author of an article that I’ve read in the Houston Press, but this one took the cake because it is something that hits home for me [“Generation DIY,” by John Lomax, April 16]. Thank you for shedding light on this subject. I didn’t realize there were so many other young people such as myself struggling with health care and prescription costs. Our society has been so driven by money that essentials such as health care are being driven out of financial reach for many, and with the economy in a rut, things are not looking up anytime soon. Thank you, and I look forward to reading more of your articles.

Wesley Deason

Houston

Online readers weigh in:

Too expensive: Let me just clear one little thing up here.

The last time my previous employer, a small business, looked into getting us some health insurance, it would have cost us more than $200 a month — and that was if we were nondrinkers and nonsmokers and had no pre-existing conditions. I know I didn’t have an extra $50-plus a week to throw down on insurance I might or might not use. I had no cable, no car (and thus no insurance or gas expenses) and a shitty little one-bedroom in a crappy part of town. And I was barely making my rent and my light bill to begin with.

So just to clarify — late teens and twenty-somethings aren’t spurning health insurance because they think they don’t need it. They’re spurning it because they cannot afford it. Not “they cannot afford it” as in “they’ll have to stop eating out / cancel their cable / buy their clothes at Wal-Mart.” “They cannot afford it” as in “the money is not there.”

It is a disgusting thing when people have to work two or three jobs just to be able to afford to go to the doctor. Thank God I’ve at least got the VA if the shit hits the fan. But if something happens to me, someone calls an ambulance and I get taken to the nearest civilian hospital, I might as well go ahead and declare bankruptcy right there.

Comment by Sara from Pasadena

Self-diagnosed: I had a rash on my back for 15 years. Three dermatologists and four doctors couldn’t diagnose it. Finally I researched it on the Internet and found out I had dermatitis herpetiformis caused by celiac disease — another thing the doctors missed. It took me about 30 minutes. None of the doctors diagnosed my Sjögren’s either, but a dentist did tell me he suspected it.

You have to be very proactive today, and with the Internet you stand a chance.

Comment by saa

Can’t afford it: I’m a late twentysomething, and I don’t have health insurance because I cannot afford it. I’ve never had a job that has had any kind of benefits. I need health insurance badly, but I just can’t afford it. The best luck I have is that I live in NYC with tons of other poor people. You can actually go to a reputable doctor here, and they will give you a generous discount without insurance. You know why? Because they charge higher premiums to people with insurance, because they know they can get that money! No joke, I went to the doctor for a standard checkup. It would have been 400 bucks; then I told the doctor that I didn’t have insurance, so he only charged me 50 for the visit for the same exact service. And those visits are still hard, even when it’s only $50.

Comment by Bryan from nyc

Hey, docs: If the doctors are really that concerned about this, they should volunteer some time at a free clinic. Figure the odds.

Comment by UncleTogie from San Antonio

Hard to believe: There are many options available. You can get catastrophic insurance at a good rate that covers major illnesses or accidents, so then at least if you are in a car accident, you have coverage.

There are options — you just have to explore. There are different policies with different coverages and different premiums. I know families can have it rougher, since having a family is generally more expensive, but I wonder about the true percentage of single people between the ages of 20 and 30 who truly can’t afford insurance. By “truly can’t afford insurance,” I mean that if they bought insurance, they’d have to forgo an essential. I’m not talking about beer money being tight; I’m talking about not being able to pay rent, food, etc.

I find it hard to believe that there are a lot of healthy, nondisabled young adults who really can’t afford insurance. Yeah, if you want to be a full-time musician and you aren’t famous, I can see that. But that’s a lifestyle choice.

Comment by BillyDeez from Houston

Take control: As a fellow twentysomething, it saddens me that so many people in their twenties (and beyond) view insurance as a frivolity or non-necessity. I had insurance through college and grad school. When that ended, I purchased Cobra for myself. If your work does not offer benefits, ask for them. Work more hours till you meet the minimum to receive benefits at your company. Or look for another job. The larger the company, typically the lower the premium. I know at my job, our health insurance deductions are pretax, so it’s not actually as large of a deduction from your paycheck as you would expect.

You never know when you’ll need your insurance. I had to have an emergency appendectomy, at age 28, last fall, and the grand total from one night at the hospital came to $21,000. With my HMO, the total out-of-pocket that I paid was $600. Another one of my co-workers was diagnosed with cancer in her late twenties and has spent a year receiving treatment. Her bill would be hundreds of thousands of dollars without insurance. You can extol the virtues of Eastern medicine, but I’m sure if you were in the same predicament, you’d rather have an HMO or PPO with access to M.D. Anderson. If you don’t understand insurance, go read up on it. Take control of your life and future, and make sure you’ll be around and healthy to enjoy it.

Comment by Christina

Babies and Balls

Online readers respond to “Psychic: Your Unborn Baby Says To Put A Mini-Fan Near Your Testicles,” Hair Balls blog, By Cathy Matusow, April 9:

Full of crap: It’d be one thing if fanning his testicles was supposed to have some kind of supernatural effect or something. But you’re saying that the unborn baby’s ghost knows the medical science behind how sperm cells develop and decided to share that through you.

Except that the baby was wrong. Fanning someone’s testicles for 20 minutes would do absolutely nothing. Sperm cells take 65 days to develop. This information, which is available to just about anyone with access to Google (though apparently, it’s not available to unborn baby ghosts), flat-out proves that this story is impossible.

So…you’re lying. And you know it, too.

If you want to claim good ju-ju fixed the guy’s broken nutsack, that’s fine. Sure, it’s childish and idiotic, but at least that way people aren’t exactly one Google-search away from knowing how totally full of crap you are.

Shawn

Nonsense! Unborn invisible future babies can communicate! They also offer reliable information! And stuff!

Kramer

Park It

Online readers respond to “The Valet Problem,” Eating…Our Words blog, by Katharine Shilcutt, April 23:

Annoyance: The needlessness of having a stranger park your car also leads me to avoid certain restaurants. Watching someone park your car 10 feet away from you is incredibly annoying, and having to wait 10 to15 minutes to get your car (still 15 feet away) is worse.

Houston restaurant owners: Valet is a hassle and an annoyance. Let us park our own cars if you have ample parking spaces.

Agree 100 percent: This is truly an epidemic. It’s totally infuriating.

Ruthie Johnson

Car guy: I agree for the most part. One thing you missed is when valet parking you get to make “an entrance.” While this is not important to me, it is to the legions of “scenesters” whose pictures populate the cheezy paparazzi scene in 002, Paper City and their ilk.

Personally, I have a pretty nice car (I’m a car guy), and I do not like other people driving or parking it. When I can, I ask the valet if I can park my own car and give him the keys. That means he still gets his tip and I get to park my car.

Brad