Word: painfully
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When the sharp abdominal pain hit me earlier this summer, I thought it might be appendicitis. By the time I arrived at the emergency room of a nearby private hospital here in Miami, the pain was excruciating. I wanted to die - no matter what it cost...
Next time, however, I'll try to block out the pain and run the numbers. It turns out I didn't have appendicitis. I had a less serious (albeit briefly unbearable) ailment: a kidney stone, about 3mm in diameter. But don't let that fool you. It was a $12,000 kidney stone. (So you think you're insured...
Another "protocol" that left me bewildered was the $3,013 charge for the physician's care. It was coded on the bill as Level 5 - the highest, what you would think would be charged for, say, shooting victims or massive coronary patients. While I was admittedly in epic pain during those few hours when the stone drilled its way from kidney to bladder, my case was nowhere near life-threatening. Again, I was simply told, "The doctor determined your care was of the nature reflected by the level that's on the bill...
Highlight Reel: 1. What "corporal punishment" means: "Corporal punishment is defined under human-rights law as "any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort." There is no comprehensive definition of corporal punishment under U.S. state or federal law. The ACLU and Human Rights Watch documented cases of corporal punishment including hitting children with a belt, a ruler, a set of rulers taped together or a toy hammer; pinching, slapping or striking very young children in particular; grabbing children around the arm, the neck or elsewhere with enough force to bruise...
...energy crisis is for government to butt out so that someone can invent a tiny battery that will power a whole city. The only specific critique he made of U.S. health care was that hospitals don't say how much their appendectomies cost, as if patients in acute abdominal pain are looking to comparison-shop. He tweeted that the situation in Iran would be different "if they had a 2nd amendment like ours...