A Slight of Hand Trick

My daughter broke her hand a couple weeks ago.  We took her to the ER.  We were told the break was so bad they couldn't set it then-she had to see an orthopedic surgeon.  She ended up needing surgery for two broken bones and a torn muscle.

We just got the first of the insurance statements.  It made me sick to my stomach- literally.  For just the ER visit and the pre-operational physical and blood work, the bill to our insurance was $3000.  Plus another $1000 for the anesthesia for the surgery.  But those bills don't even include the consultation with the surgeon, the actual surgery and the follow up care she's needing- those we have yet to see.

Now at the ER they took x-rays and gave her pain meds- and those costs seem within what I would have expected.  But on the bill there's an item marked "surgery," we looked up the code- it's basically the cost for the doctor to take a piece of cloth, wet it so it becomes stiff, place it under her hand and arm, and then wrap everything with an ace bandage to immobilize it- a splint.  That "surgery" which took less than 5 minutes cost over $200.00.  And then prior to surgery she needed a physical with her pediatrician.  She had been getting some bad bloody noses, so her doctor ordered some blood work to make sure her white blood cell count, etc was OK.  One test alone- over $400.00

I am going to be writing Scott Walker, Mary Lazich, Paul Ryan and Ron Johnson about this issue- this slight of hand trick that politicians are playing on us hard working middle class people.

We all know how these magicians- I mean politicians- work. They distract the American people by causing all this commotion over here.  "It's those greedy, lazy public workers who are causing your life to be so bad.  Let's get 'em."  Meanwhile, over there, the other hand holds the real "trick-" our dysfunctional health care system.  "Don't let the people see the reality of what's causing their problems, because then we'd actually have to go back to talking about health care reform."

I am not fooled by their slight of hand tricks- and I know neither are many other Americans.  Yet here we are, watching the same stupid magic trick over and over again and never calling their bluff.

Teacher Pay Losing Ground

I'm getting tired of defending my salary- and the myth that my husband and I, as educators, are somehow so much better off than other middle class working Americans.  We're not.  And when I find myself once again debating this issue with family members who really have no idea exactly what we do as educators, and exactly how much time and energy we put into our careers, I will be directing them to this:

The Economic Policy Institute issue #298 published on March 30th: 
THE TEACHING PENALTY

An update through 2010

"Trends in weekly earnings show that public school teachers in 2010 earned about 12% less than comparable workers, a gap equivalent to that found in our 2004 study. The weekly earnings disadvantage for teachers relative to comparable workers grew by 10.5 percentage points between 1979 and 2010, with most of the erosion (8.2 percentage points) occurring between 1996 and 2001. This increase in wage disparity for teachers is particularly troublesome because the 1990s recovery was one of the few periods in recent decades of strong overall wage growth for workers."

And how do benefits fit in?

"We found that the average weekly pay of teachers in 2003 was nearly 14% below that of workers with similar education and work experience, a gap only minimally offset by the better nonwage benefits in teaching." 

Conclusion?

"If the policy goal is to improve the quality of the entire teaching workforce, then raising the level of teacher compensation is critical to recruiting and retaining higher quality teachers. Policies that solely focus on changing the composition of current compensation (e.g., merit or pay-for-performance schemes) without actually increasing compensation levels are unlikely to be effective. Simply put, improving overall teacher quality requires correcting the teacher compensation disadvantage in the labor market."E1

Back for More Fight

I'm back- after a hectic end of the year and some family issues- and ready to fight.