Yesterday at the town hall meeting held by the President, there was a man protesting outside with a gun. He had the gun strapped to his leg, and according to New Hampshire state law he was perfect legal in carrying the firearm. Needless to say there were some that found this odd.

There was a Republican shill interviewed on MSNBC a few hours after the town hall and he was asked about the gun. He didn’t express outrage, concern or any other emotion a normal person might do. He figured it was OK and challenged the people asking the question, playing to his base about second amendment rights.

In Arizona, it’s illegal for people to smoke in a bar. A hefty fine can be levied on a bar owner if he let’s someone smoke indoors. A law was passed recently that allows people to carry a concealed weapon in a bar, as long as you don’t drink. So, if I understand this correctly if I come in with a concealed gun, as long as I don’t drink I’m OK but if I do drink then it’s illegal. If I have the weapon concealed how will someone know not to give me a drink?

The man with the gun was interviewed on Hardball and he is what you would expect from someone who would carry a gun out in public. We was just tight enough to cause concern but obviously not crazy. You would be scared if someone cut him off on the side of the road, or if he felt someone slighted him, because at that point he would probably use the weapon.

As Chris Matthews got across in the interview, knowing the history of this country, it would be foolish to carry a gun to a Presidential town hall. Even the sign the person held up, which he ‘forgot’ to but the second sentence up, talked about how sometimes revolution needed to prune the tyrant, which is just polite company talk for killing those who aren’t ‘right.’

It seems at the town halls we’re forgetting we’re talking about health care; we’re talking about helping people who don’t have insurance. People are so concerned about socialized medicine or are so willing to believe in ‘death panels’ they aren’t looking at the real costs they pay in health care. One thing I heard made a lot of sense; people are so distrustful of the government they don’t want the government involved at all, even if what they fear the government will do is exactly what is being done to them by others. There was this guy in the audience who talked about how he needed a brand name product for treatment but ‘the government’ (because he’s on Medicare) had him on some other medication before they put him back on the brand name. The President rightly pointed out that in many cases the generic drugs can work just as well as the name brand, and cost a lot less. In this man’s case, they tested the others, found they didn’t work and approved him of taking the name brand.

With my medical history, and because of the health debate I did some checking, it seems the meter and test strips I got were the most expensive ones out there. Now, as a sick person, I didn’t know and didn’t care about the cost because insurance was going to cover it. As soon as I didn’t have a prescription and had to buy the stuff on my own did I get upset because I was paying double of what I could pay for the generic and get the same results.

I think the people screaming the loudest about not changing health care are people who aren’t thinking about the overall impact. Their insurance pays for most of the medication and tests so as long as they aren’t shelling out the money they’re OK. I probably would have been like them if I didn’t have the health crisis then started looking at what I was paying for. Things weren’t that simple. There was a time frame last year where I had to see the doctor four times and I had to take about seven tests he ordered. Each visit was $25 and the tests I had to shell out anywhere from $10 to $25. Admittedly paying about $300 was a lot better than $3000, which would have been the cost without insurance, but for someone not making a lot $300 still hurts. Because I was getting positive reports from the doctor and I was running out of money I skipped the last two visits which stopped three of the tests.

The only insurance I had was from work, now might there have been a policy out there which would have paid for the visits and tests? I’m not sure. One shock I did find when I was sick was the emergency room visit. I was lucky financially that I was admitted through the emergency room. When I looked over the policy I saw that if I made an appointment, gone in and been admitted I would have to pay for half of my medical bill. My bill came out to $20000 which means with insurance I would have been saddled with a $10000 bill. If I went to the emergency room, they did the tests and they sent me home, I would have been charged for that in full. That was $2000 for the tests that were done before I was admitted. So only because I was dumb lucky enough to have gone to the emergency room, been bad enough to get admitted right away did I end up paying $400 out of pocket.

That is what frustrates people about health care who bother to look into it. I can’t shop around to find insurance that might be a better fit for me. It makes no sense to me that I have the same sickness, but how I’m admitted is going to determine how much I pay. The bigger joke on all this is I knew I needed a doctor; this was before I went to the emergency room, and I never had a doctor before. I figured it would take maybe a week before I could see one. It took four weeks before I could see a doctor and when I had the appointment set, I went to the emergency room one day before I was to meet with the doctor. I never made the appointment because I was in the hospital. When I got out I had to reschedule, which was a three week wait. When I got the doctor and was happy with the guy, by the third check up I was told the doctor had left the insurance program and I had to get another doctor who was further away and postponed the check up I had for two weeks.

Yeah, my travels through the health care system hasn’t been real fun.