Living Without Health Care

[queerbychoice]

aesiron suspects his finger is broken, and has the misfortune to be an American with no health insurance. Does anyone have suggestions that might help him?

Comments

[sammka.livejournal.com]

Has he done research on whether the finger is actually broken? Sometimes even painful injuries are sprains, in which case you can probably just splint the finger with some medical tape and a long hard object. For some types of fractures, this is what they'd do to a broken finger anyway. I found this to be pretty useful at explaining how to detect a finger fracture, and which kinds of finger fractures even need intensive treatment.

Does he live in a city? There are sometimes free clinics and free departments of hospitals. If he has the money, though, and can't find a free clinic, I might just go to the emergency room anyway, since an untreated injury can cause a lot more problems down the line.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

If it's just a finger, I recommend that he head to a private or subsidized medical clinic -- as we discovered this weekend, they will take people without insurance. It was a $95 fee, but that's about 1/5 of what he might pay in an emergency room.

[dzuunmod.livejournal.com]

I don't have any suggestions, I just wanted to say that this post saddened me.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Me too. That's part of why I posted it.