1/29/09

Bug Bites


Apparently bugs only bite me when I don’t have insurance.  The past 48 hours I have been hobbling around the house and campus with a swollen, red leg caused by a spider bite.  The venom of the bite made my leg tremendously tender to the touch, but worse in my estimation, gave me a fever of over 100.  All of my family and good friends have urged me to go to the doctor to get it checked out.  Normally I would, but I haven’t had health insurance since I left my job last April.

I’m reflecting on this for the first time because I assumed that nothing would happen.  I find great irony in the fact that I am legally required to insure my vehicle in order to operate it on the roads here in Utah.  Along with my car insurance, I have renter’s insurance to cover my “things” where I live.  I have no problem buying traveler’s insurance to cover any changes that may occur on a trip.  But, when I look at the cost of insuring myself, I’ve decided to pass.

I suppose I should know better.  The last time I didn’t have health insurance was when I was on a mission for the LDS Church.  I’m not sure what the critter was, but I was bitten in the forests of Latvia and ended up with viral Meningitis.  That had me laid up for three weeks.  (If you ever want a real thrill, try getting a spinal tap in an old Soviet hospital).  I saw the bill on that hospital stay and I could have purchased a few new Skoda’s or Peugeot’s with the amount that was charged.

Why is it that I have to purchase insurance for my car and I’m not required to purchase for my body?  It seems to me that our priorities in this state and in this nation are askew.  Tacking on $1600 a year for insurance sounds reasonable to most, but for a poor college student, that is not an insignificant amount.  At my previous employer, the total for the year was only $650 for a single person.

It seems to create the have’s and have not’s.  I’m a single person so $1600 is the lowest dollar amount available to students.  Thank God I don’t have a family or I wouldn’t even be able to think about purchasing insurance.

In the end I’ll probably just ride this spider bite out.  If it get’s worse then I’ll think about getting it checked out and passing on the costs to those of you that can afford to have health insurance.

4 comments:

Jonathan said...

First off, the spider bite sounds horrible! I hope you recover quickly!

As for insurance: you're usually only required to have *liability* insurance for your car -- not to protect your car, but to protect *other people* from what you might do to them. That's a little different from health insurance or renter's insurance, which are designed to protect you from others (rather than protecting others from you).

El Genio said...

You should be able to find insurance for a lot less than $1,600. I dropped my company insurance 8 months ago when I went freelance and picked up a plan from https://www.ehealthinsurance.com which costs me about $50/month. My deductible is $3,000 but they do cover two annual doctor visits.

Mark said...

Kiddo, your flesh around the bite could start dying (necrosis). Given where you are, It's doubtful that it's brown recluse but I worry about black widow. Please check the following out:
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/spider_bite_brown_recluse_spider_bite/article_em.htm

Iknowaboutpopular said...

You really need to go to the student clinic and have them check that out. Spider bites really something that should be treated with a wait-and-see attitude. On a lighter note. I adore that video you posted on the Face Book today. Let me know if I can bring you anything.