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Good and Bad

June 13th, 2014 at 05:15 am

Well my day yesterday started off eventfully. My younger kiddo rolled off the bed and cut her face. She needed stitches. She's fine thankfully but boy it was a lot of blood and screaming. This is my accident prone kid. Oh well.

So my issue? The american health care system. We called the pediatrician and went in at 830 to see the nurse practitioner. She says you need stitches go to the ER. I ask why not do it in the office? Or do you refer out to a different dr. Nope the ER. So we go to the ER for sutures. SERIOUSLY? She said the dr don't have the right equipment and don't do it enough to be comfortable doing sutures. Okay then. We go there at 8:45.

I thought I keep reading about all these people who use the ER as care facilities driving up the cost of healthcare. I am now one of these people and I WENT to my supposed "gate keeper" pediatrician and got sent to the ER! Okay how can they say the prices of health insurance is out of control because people don't use primary care dr when the primary care dr don't know what else to do? Besides the fact I was annoyed I could have gone straight to the ER, but I "thought" I was doing the right thing.

And besides the fact that we were there waiting for sutures and didn't leave the ER until 2 pm! 5 hours! really? It wasn't busy we were like the only people in there but we had to wait for staff to come on? The inefficiency left me incensed. But my kiddo is fine and I am not sure if I should have taken her to a plastic surgeon or surgeon office where it could have been done in the office and faster. Arrgh.

On a positive note I made $150 on a focus group about taxes. Granted my money went straight to our ER copay. And I didn't learn anything. If anything I learned that people really don't save money.

There was a real guy standing up in front of the class showing us his financials. Here they are married with 1 child.

Income $112k
Paid Federal Taxes $10,700
SS $6900
Medicare $1624
State $4750
401k $4480 (4%)
Health Insurance Premium $6k (HDHP)
HSA $2k
Mortgage/Property Taxes $16k

Federal Taxes owed - $7700, refund $3k

Not a big deal, but seriously this guy is living on $6200/month and he can't save more? I don't think he was saving for a Roth IRA. I sat there wondering why wouldn't the guy be saving more? Isn't he worried? Where is the rest of his $4400/month going to after he pays his mortgage?

It's easier to trim a dollar in the budget than to try and save more. But it was very eye opening about how people are trying to save for retirement in this country.

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