Health care can be an expensive gamble

By JOSIE HUANG, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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	Photo by John Patriquin Jessica Genalski, seen here at the Biddeford Free Clinic for health monitoring, hopes to land a job that would offer health benefits at a reasonable cost.
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BIDDEFORD — Waking up with a racing heart scared Jessica Genalski so much she skipped work one morning last July and drove straight to Southern Maine Medical Center. She walked out of the hospital four hours later, calmer for having taken some anti-anxiety medication but saddled with a bill for $1,037.

Thank goodness, she says, the hospital cut costs down to $600. "I'm supposed to pay $40 a month until it's paid off," said Genalski, 26.

The emergency room is often the first place uninsured people turn to when a crisis hits, but care can cost more for the people who can least afford to pay it.

While insurance companies negotiate discounts with hospitals and other health care providers for their customers, the uninsured have to pay everything out-of-pocket, often at a markup. This often results in unpaid bills - a loss that hospitals end up passing onto insurers.

Genalski makes about $8.50 an hour, barely enough, she says, to cover the $600 she owes each month for car payments and auto insurance. But she is sticking to the medical payment plan because she says she wants to protect her credit rating so she can own a home one day.

In the meantime, she hopes to be permanently hired making liquid level probes for gas storage tanks at a Saco-based company.

That way, she can buy health insurance at an affordable price. Besides regular bouts with anxiety and panic, tendinitis plagues her shoulders, a remnant from her days of folding blankets for more than two years at the WestPoint Stevens textile mill in Biddeford.

Until the coverage comes, Genalski is doing her best to stay healthy. She regularly goes to the Biddeford Free Clinic for monitoring. Breaks at work present a time to power walk, and at home she does repetitions with a 3-lb. weight.

"I'm trying to deal with it the best I can, trying to relax and exercise," she said.

Staff Writer Josie Huang can be contacted at 791-6364 or at: jhuang@pressherald.com

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