Thank You, "Socialized Medicine"

I just got my bill from University Hospitals for the six immunotherapy treatments I "enjoyed" from January to March (three withdrawals, three infusions). The whole idea is this: My blood's T-cells needed to be targeted more directly on the cancer that will one day kill me (there is no cure). So ... in three separate procedures (conducted at the Akron Red Cross), all my blood was slowly withdrawn (and returned!), fed through a machine that whirled it around (isolating the T-cells); the extractions were then flown to Atlanta, where they were treated with Provenge, then flown back to University Hospitals (in University Circle in Cleveland), where they were infused back into me.

Okay.

This week I received in the mail the notice of the amount I owe to University Hospitals now that my Aetna Medicare policy* has paid its share:

• Total bill for the procedures: $100,696.40
• My share: $1375.09

Now, I'm not thrilled about a medical bill of nearly $1400! But I am thrilled that my share was, oh, a bit over 1% of the total. (I'm a one-percenter!)

As I wrote some months ago here, without Medicare I could not have afforded the procedure--and if you add this current cost to all the others I've had with this cancer battle since early in 2005 (surgery, radiation, heavy-duty drugs, visits with specialists, etc.) I would, like Chris Farley in the old SNL skits, be "living in a van down by the river." Though I'm not so sure about the van. More like a cardboard box.

So ... thank you, "socialized medicine" (a term the enemies of universal health care love to employ). I am alive and typing these words because of Medicare, because I am lucky enough to have the health insurance that so many seem intent on denying to those who just don't, you know, deserve it.

I am memorizing a long poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I am writing a eulogy I will deliver for my mother at her service on April 7. I am exercising (most days!) at a health club. I am baking bread every week. I am adoring my son and his family (and their dazzling sons). I am enjoying every second with Joyce. I am writing stupid poems. Working on an endless memoir about chasing Mary Shelley. Keeping in touch with old friends and former students and new friends via Facebook. Enjoying Open Door Coffee Co. every day. Reading new books. Watching old TV shows, streaming new ones. Going to the movies. Seeing plays.

Living.

Loving.

*a policy I pay for through the Ohio State Teachers Retirement System; Aetna, which is the supplemental part of it, also administers the Medicare part of it.