Healthcare for all, and to all a good night.

Gabe and I were talking about healthcare yesterday, and I have to comment on how lucky we are to have it. It's expensive. Like, REALLY expensive. But we have coverage through Gabe's job and it's really good. As with all things in life, you get what you pay for and we have the Cadillac of insurance.

Thank goodness.

In the last 6 months, our insurance has saved us over $150,000. Gabe had open heart surgery in September, I gave birth to Aidan in November, and Jude had his third set of ear tubes put in as well as his adenoids removed at the end of last year. It was a trying time to say the least, but we didn't once have to worry for the quality of our care, or our ability to pay. We could choose the best doctors and facilities because they were all covered under our insurance. We didn't have to weigh the cost of Jude's tubes against the cost of our house payment. For just over $1000 (plus the cost of medications), everything was covered.

When I look at our invoices, I am shocked. For Gabe's hospital stay alone, Blue Cross paid out $16,525. That's huge. But what they saved in negotiated contracts with the hospital was nearly $84,000. That's right - if we did not have insurance we would have been stuck with an invoice for $100,307.42 from Swedish Medical Center. We would have lost everything, in a financial sense, in order to save Gabe's life. And we would have done it without question.

I can't imagine anyone going through what my family went through and opposing a universal healthcare program for America. I dream of a country where families like mine aren't "lucky" because they don't have to worry about the cost of healthcare, they're just grateful.