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So, while the hospital I visited in January is currently deciding if I’m enough of a charity case to waive some of my charges, the ER physician (who charges separately from the hospital itself) just sent me a bill.
On the one hand, I do get the contractual readjustment through my health insurance company. On the other hand, they don’t actually pay anything. (Remind me again why I have health insurance? I grow to hate them more and more each day.)
So I’m still stuck with a $300+ bill here, and whatever the hospital decides I should pay, which could be up to $1500.
And while I’ve known this for awhile, now that I’m here staring at the bill and preparing to make the payment, it’s just eating me up. I haven’t looked at the books too carefully in awhile, but I think this $300 is probably the grand total amount of money that I have managed to save up since I started tutoring back in September. So that’s what my six months of struggling was for.
And even if I decide to go to grad school, it’s going to keep being this way. I look at the paltry sum in my savings account and mentally deduct what I might have to pay for my ER visit, and wonder how on earth I’ll be able to afford even STARTING grad school. Flying back east, deposit on an apartment, new furniture, a car…
Then again, if I DON’T go, I’ll just continue to live here in miserable fucking California, and will have no income during the summer months anyway.
Today has just been a bad day. I don’t even know what to say about it, except that I continue to not be able to believe that this is the way the world works. I continue to not be able to believe that this is my life. I am miserable and unhappy and struggling to survive and I just see no end to it.
What it comes down to is this: some days I see hope for the future. And some days I don’t.
Today has been one of the latter.
Tags: health care, health insurance, medical bills, money troubles
