2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Who else wanted single-payer universal healthcare over the ACA? [View all]passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 19, 2016, 06:34 PM - Edit history (1)
When I was a kid I got a new pair of cute sandals and my Mom said I could wear them outside if I didn't climb trees with them on. I was a tomboy. I loved to climb anything. So I walk out the front door and noticed what looked like a bird's nest in an evergreen tall shrubby/tree by the front porch. Of course I climbed it, and my sandals slipped and my knee landed on a cut-off branch, and was cut badly. My pissed off mother took me to the doctor (no emergency room thank goodness) for stitches. The doc was cleaning it up and pulled out a nice big chunk of branch and laughed about it. We thought it was part of my knee.
Anyway, my Mom got a regular doctor visit bill for it, not a three or more thousand dollar bill for the ER, which is insane. Hopefully single payer will eliminate the need for ER's treating all emergencies and more urgent care clinics will open up to treat minor emergencies for after hours, like "needing stitches". In your case, you may have needed x-rays to make sure there was no internal knee damage...don't know. They didn't do that in my case...not in those days.
I hope your knee recovered OK. I fell about six years ago and smashed my knee on the edge of a board and it will never be the same. I had arthroscopic surgery and it didn't help (the doc did not know what the hell he was doing). I need knee replacement surgery now and cannot afford it, even with Medicare. I sure hope your knee won't put you in this same position.