We have received the first of the bills from our daughter's emergency surgery last week. It was breath-taking for an afternoon, a night, and the next day. Our daughter has applied for assistance from the 'charity board' at the hospital and our daughters have begun the bartering process on determining a bill that we have a hope of paying. The process started with "what can you pay?" Now, that's an interesting question and a hard one to answer honestly. What do you mean and what is your basis for that question? It's an interesting process that reminds me of buying something at the Saturday market here in Maputo: "I'll make you a good price" as you go back and forth and back and forth with the seller on the price, never really understanding what is the real value of the goods. So far the hospital has been nothing but gracious with us, for which we are indeed thankful. We are thankful for the good care she received and we want to do our part but with this process we are wondering what is the real value? It's just like here when we go to the market; we pay one (higher) price; Mozambicans pay another. So, if you have one insurance company you pay one price; if you have a different insurance company, you pay another price; if you have medicare, you pay another price; if you don't have insurance you pay another - and it's all negotiated. It's like when you travel on the airplane, the tickets might vary from 100 to 1100 dollars for the same exact flight - so what is the real value?
The politics of it all are also quite interesting. My daughter was refusing to go to the hospital because she didn't have insurance and could have died if a friend hadn't forced her to go to the hospital. She didn't have insurance because the insurance policies for low income people are basically unaffordable. Employers take advantage of using part-time employees so they don't have to pay benefits but do so because they generally can't afford the added costs and stay competitive. Non-profits aren't required to offer a program where you can pay for and carry insurance on a child after they are no-longer eligible for the parent's policy (the COBRA option many of you are familiar with and that we have used before we came to Mozambique). The IRS rules don't consider this kind of a thing 'charitable', so OMS and our church base are unable to help because of potential trouble with the IRS (i.e. offer tax-deductable receipting) - and so here we sit with a breath-taking medical bill. Healthcare is truly a problem and I'm seeing it from the other side of insurance for the first time in my life. I can see the thread of government through all of this and have little confidence they can unwravel the twisted thread. If I knew the answer, I'd write the book, get a presidential appointment, and use the proceeds to pay the bill!
We're not alone. We've received a number of emails from others who have found themselves in the same boat. All of the mail has been encouraging in that God will and does provide and we stand faithfully on that. In some cases the final bills were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and were resolved eventually. Our problem is small by comparison. And until the negotiations are complete, we don't even know the true size of the mountain.
We'll just pray this mountain into the sea!
And what just breaks my heart is that I live in a country where so many in the villages have no access to health care - none; where someone's equally precious daughter would have just died and even more tragically, died without even hearing the Gospel, without even having a chance to respond to the reason for the hope within us. Come quickly Lord Jesus.
"So Jesus said to them, 'Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.'" Matt 17:20
"And who ever said life was fair?" Dave's response to his daughters when they would say "it's not fair!"
2 comments:
Thinking of You. You are all in our prayers and our Sunday school is aware of the details of your precious daughter's stay in the hospital. The Baldauffs are well. Joe is in Russia 4 hours by air east of Moscow(Kamensk Uralsky). He'll be a couple weeks. I think of You every am. as I sit on my living room couch looking out at my crabapple tree and birdfeeder. That's my place for prayer. "The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms". That's for You! MJBaldauff
I work for legal aid in Washington State and one of the things we occassionally do is negotiate charity care agreements for our low income clients. If Lyndsey can't work something out with the hospital, tell her to call her local legal aid organization.
Cousin Chris
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