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Show 349 "The health care industry is. currently debating not covering the few expensive people," he is saying. "So many more people could be treated with the money now spent on those few very expensive cases." I now realize that he is forewarning me of things beyond his control and I realize that he is passing secreted conversations along to me, conversations around a long and broad table with people sitting there who themselves have perhaps only briefly, if ever, occupied the very hospital beds whose occupants they blandly discuss. I understand without his saying that I am one of those expensive "cases." There is no emotional interpretation in his voice as he relates this information. Virginia, sitting silently in the chair next to me, is overly still. "You and Georgia together have cost this hospital nearly $1 million this year alone," he states, as a flat fact. "Well, then," I add, straining to likewise keep all emotion out of my voice at the revelation of this very personal and shocking information, "all the more reason to cut the expense by letting me stay home and let someone who is well-trained administer the Versed there." I do not add that perhaps the many could benefit from the study of rare disease in the few. But while I subscribe to the theory of continuum of disease process, perhaps he does not. It is a thought I will try to recall if needed on that fateful day when treatment is denied me for purely financial reasons. |