Could you live on $1000/month?

Not to be too nitpicky but Petroleum (oil and gas) is the wealthiest industry in the world. You probably knew that and just forgot.

If it makes you feel better to think of yourself as innovative and the rest of us as scared and petty and narrowminded and incapable of living on little money then good for you. But I for one am not scared or lack common sense and we have always been independent and self sufficient. In fact I am very confident and secure and know that I am independent of ever having to rely on anyone else. We pay our way.

And yes we pay for it with property insurance and car insurance and disability and extended health insurance and surprisingly enough the "gamble" has paid off. My cancer treatments alone have cost more than I have paid in taxes and disability and supplemental healthcare insurance in 40 years of working. And if any other family member gets sick at the same time they will get just as good treatment. And we won't run out of money or lose what we have.

It is very naive to think that illness and accidents and other emergencies only ever happen in singles giving you lots of time to save up for the next one. In one month we were hit with a forest fire, a stolen car and a ruptured gall bladder.

In my career and also in my volunteer life I have had to deal with many of those who think that they have the system beat. They are willing to take the risk - until it really affects them. Won't pay $200 a year (55 cents a day) for tenant insurance and then rant and rave at the world and expect hand outs when their apartment building burns. 'cause it does happen.

And car accidents. As I tell my family I am not worried about your driving but about all the other idiots out there.

You can be as healthy as a horse as I was and unbeknownst to you (or your doctor or all the yearly physical medical tests) a silent killer is destroying you. At least I never had to weigh up whether or not I should even go to the doctor because it would cost too much if they found something wrong. And when they did find something wrong all I had to do was relax and let them fix me. And my part of the fixing was so much less expensive than my funeral would have been. Oh yeah. I forgot. I have a plan that covers that as well.

No one will be looking down the back of the couch to find the money to pay for anything that we need.

Does it have to be an argument? Can't paying for healthcare be affordable for some people and not for others? I believe vanet when she says she lowered her bills like that, I've seen it done pretty tightly. Huge bills lowered to tiny amounts. I don't know what helicopters cost, but I had one guy take me up in his for free just to show me around once, so it can't really be a grand just to hover for a bit. [Also, it's only a few hundred dollars for a private heli tour of Ayer's Rock on tourist dollars, which is twice real dollars] But there also wasn't a full med team on staff and we were bush so there weren't towers to radio or ask permission from either. Who knows?

The private healthcare is affordable for me but not for my husband because we're two different people who approach life two different ways. What works for one person doesn't always work for another.

I, for one, am glad the advice is at least there for people who want to try a different method than the one they have. It might work for them.

I think we pay for both LifeFlight and NWMedstar since they both operate out of Bonner County. Can't be too careful.

You're not just going up on a helicopter or plane. I don't get why people keep saying this when it's been explained, ad nauseum.
You're going on one with a top notch medical team and top notch medical equipment. My sister was in a horrific car crash when she was 15 and "died" and was resuscitated on a lifeflight chopper. If not for that flight...she would be dead.

"Long story short we have been negotiating our medical expenses ever since. That was in the late 80's we have had more than one major emergency includeing my son haveing to be air evaced 250 miles to a hospital and a 3 day stay. Bill would have been $22000 we paid cash and it was just over $2600. Everything is super overinflated because of insurance.


I do believe Vanet that you did state you paid $220 for a medivac flight - see YOUR post above (bolding is mine).

Prior to that you stated that you paid a total of 2600. which included the medivac flight so which is it?

I find your statements regarding costs of the medivac flight to be conflicting. Either you were billed and paid the 220. for the flight or you were not billed and did not pay or you paid the hospital which included the flight.

I bring this up as I hate to see fellow poster's integrity impinged by your derisive comments regarding their objections as to the cost. Again see your quoted comment regarding "keeping up".

Annsi - I am in the same camp - I hate paying for insurance but on the other hand, I have completely gotten back plus some every dime I ever paid in.

It totally depends upon the amount of risk one wishes to accept in life. There are those who can accept any manner of risk and those that will accept no risk and all sorts in between.

BTW - I did a little research on starting salaries of helo pilots (medivac).
http://www.ehow.com/info_7759223_ann...ter-pilot.html

Average Medevac Pilot Salary

• Although only 2,060 helicopter pilots are employed in the health care industry to pilot airborne response helicopters according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it's a field that offers pilots a position that's less routine than those of commercial pilots. Pilots of medical helicopters earn an average annual salary of $63,170 as of May 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  
  

Salary by Experience

• Because the number of hours logged in cockpit is a primary qualification for higher-paying jobs, helicopter pilots with more experience -- and therefore more flight time -- tend to have higher salaries than entry-level ones. Helicopter pilots with one to four years in the field earn average salaries of $41,567 to $60,139 annually as of December 2010, according to PayScale. Earnings climb for pilots with five to nine years of experience to a range of $50,368 to $68,150. Veteran pilots with 10 or more years in the field earn average annual salaries that range from $56,170 to $96,233.
  
  

What does it cost to ride in a medevac?

Costs range from $12,000 to $25,000 per flight
Every year, an estimated 550,000 patients in the United States are flown by medical helicopters and small airplanes for emergencies that include car wrecks, hiking accidents and heart attacks, according to the Association of Air Medical Services. Nearly 1,200 aircraft operate from more than 830 bases across the country, with about half run by hospitals and half run as stand-alone community services.



The average distance of the trips is 52 miles, but the costs vary widely. There's no national requirement to track or report fees, but they can range from less than $12,000 to as much as $25,000 per flight, according to Craig M. Yale, vice president of corporate development for Air Methods Corp., the nation’s largest provider of air medical transport systems.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34419018.../#.UQGlZWf4bW0


or by the mile here:


According to 2010 data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the base rate for a flight in Atlantic City and the surrounding area is $3,307.89. In rural areas around Atlantic City, the rate jumps to $5,274.43.


The farther a patient is from a hospital, the more money it costs for helicopter flights. Rural rates for medevac services are $32.30 per mile in rural areas and $21.53 in urban areas. Those costs are in addition to the base rates.


http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/n...cc4c002e0.html


If I were a betting person and I am not, I would say it would be better to have insurance and not need it than to need it and not have it.


But each to his/her own, but don't be derisive to get your point across. This is a NICE board.

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I said that in my reply.. that it didn't include the team, so what did I know?

My point was... why are we even arguing about it? Can't we just go, "Cool, that's what worked for her" and even if you think she's lying just live your life the way that works for you and give advice for your lifestyle so people who live your lifestyle can do it your way? Why does it have to be torn apart into itemized detail?

You're also misquoting her to make her look like a liar. She replied to someone who said it was that much for the flight AND three days in hospital to which she replied to THAT with no, 220 was just for the flight but you took the quotes in the wrong order to make it look like she lied. That's not cool, man.

I would say the actual cost was more than $220, the poster just received a discounted charitable rate. Everything medical is much more expensive than we think it will be...

Then what bearing did it have on the argument?

I said THAT in my reply, too. What do you do read the first half of posts and then reply?

The fact is it costs x amount of money to have medstar available, before it gets a call to get a patient. If you want them to take off immediately, which may make the difference between life and death, you are paying staff to wait for emergencies and equipment to be ready to take off. If vanet paid 2200.00 for medical evacuation and three days in the hospital, someone else is paying the balance. Or he made it up.

I am pretty close to that, a little more maybe, but since i am self employed it varies from month to month. I also have a mortgage to pay.. so I have finally decided to get a roommate so i can gain a bit of breathing room. It's no fun always living on the edge LOL

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The total bill was a bit over $2600. The part that paid for the Flight was right at $220. Neither was subsidized, and health care cost a lot LESS than we think. What we hear and see are the inflated insurance costs. Not true costs. As one person mentioned Heli and plane flights dont cost much for other times, so why when its medical. I have already said that there was one EMT along with my wife, the pilot and my infant son. All you folks want to do is argue, so just drop it. I will live my way and you live yours.

Oh my gosh - this is QUITE funny to read. Yeah, doctors pocket 70% of what they take in? Well, after everything they have to pay out including malpractice insurance, they don't have a whole lot left. I have numerous friends who are doctors and I can tell you very easily that they don't make 10x what other people make. At all!

If they paid $220 for a mediflight and 3 days in the hospital, the hospital has now passed the costs on to the insurance company because NO hospital will charge even $220 a DAY - and that's without the flight. If they have a patient that cannot pay (which apparently he cannot), they pass the expenses onto other people.

So I say "Thanks for making my insurance rates go up."

Woah!! Did your mother raise you this way? If you had been my child, you wouldn't have grown up with this nasty attitude because you would have had a very sore rear!!

Again, your inability to pay the full amount results in higher costs for those of us who have insurance and DO pay.

You are comparing apples and barns. Either can be red. A medical evacuation helicopter has hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical equipment, is staffed and ready to take off instantly if called with well trained, experienced personal. A tourist helicopter isn't. Your reasoning does not make any sense.

What do you need vs what you want.
I rented a storage bay in an industrial area once. I told them I needed to store my furniture; I just did not tell them I was going to store me too. $175 a month, utilities included, $50 for the phone. I made a kitchen was a microwave, electric fry pan, crock pot, and a coffee maker. the shower was a 5 gal bucket set up on 4x4's with a shower head and hose coming from the bottom. I drove a Honda scooter.
my income was $750 a month. I managed to save enough to buy a 36ft sail boat to live on, and still had enough money to go dancing and enjoy life.
I lived on what i needed until I got what I want.