Alright, I have a semi-important thing to say, so bear with me. There was part of my accident I didnt want to talk much about publicly. The fact is, I didnt have health insurance at the time, which was a huge mistake. I racked up a bill that was about $15,000 and would have taken me years to pay off. Only a few people know this, but the truth is, that broke me as a human being. To see all my years of work and saving demolished in 48 hours, and knowing that a good chunk of my earning power was no longer mine from now until the unforeseeable future and all because of one little mishap... that was tough to deal with. Now Im only bringing this up because I recently got a letter in the mail from the hospital (Avera St. Lukes in Aberdeen, SD) that my debt has been completely forgiven. This only happened because I applied to see if I was eligible for forgiveness of any of the debt. As it turns out, Im poor enough to qualify. (Hooray...) So, if you are now in or ever find yourself in a similar situation--speak up for yourself! See if theres anything you can do, anyone you can talk to. There is probably already a system set up for folks like us, so do whatever you can! Theyre probably not going to come to you with that information, so you have to seek it out. Let me also be the first to say that I fully admit that it was my own irresponsibility in not getting health insurance that led to a lot of this. Dont get me wrong, those bills were seriously bloated, and several times during their treating me, the doctors and nurses tried to push several absurdly unnecessary and expensive treatments on me, which became frustrating and confusing because, after all, theyre the ones who know whats going on, not me. I had to practically pry the No, this is not necessary out of them each time. Basically, if the bill had been more reasonable, and the experience more full of honesty and less salesmanship, I would have been more wiling to pay. As it stands, I felt more like I was being taken for all I was worth while I was at my most vulnerable. So applying for forgiveness felt more like fighting back than like asking for charity. Having said all that, Im also proud, delighted, and lucky as hell to live in a time and place where this kind of thing is possible--where I dont risk being sent to debtors prison or being enslaved for life because of this. Anyway, thanks for reading, and good luck if youre ever in the same situation.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 22:16:35 +0000