I deal with rosacia which flares up during nearly every backpacking trip. I have been a member of BPL for a few years now and never realized until tonight that there does not seems to be a forum dedicated to health/medical issues. Frankly I think there should be enough different topics to justify health/medical issues under a forum of its own, rather than add it to food, hydration and nutrition.
Thanks.
Gerry Brucia

Actually, there is.

The Appalachian Trail forum at whiteblaze.net has a subforum on Health, Safety, and Hygiene on the trail.

Since you brought it up..
California is an "at will" employment state. That means the employer can fire you at any time for any reason short of blatant discrimination(Good Luck with that too).
Employers cannot afford to offer health care in this economy and when it's offered it comes at a high price for employees and employers.
Since I cannot afford medical insurance in my real life I have taken to subscribing to temporary short term medical insurance while on my thru hikes.
The company I use is Assurant Health Care.
They sell 6 month short term policies for about $1000 bucks. The deductable is $2,500 with a lifetime maximum of $2,000,000.
So at least if i fall off a rock and fracture something important I can go broke paying the deductable before they go broke paying for the rest of the medical care.
The thing I don't understand about insurance is: It's there IN CASE something happens right?.. So why don't we get our money back when nothing happens?
Knock on wood.. but I have not needed medical care in 25 years.
Most of that time i was usually paying in to the system via medical and various companiy medical plans of my employers.
It seems odd that i have to pay even more money for something I have never used.
Where did all those thousands of dollars go?
Oh yea.. best Medical advice for the trail is: carry and use Purell hand sanitizer.

Edited by Ice-axe on 03/06/2011 20:59:44 MST.

I would prefer to get my medical and health information from qualified persons. Not have everyone chip in with their advice. A lot of good info here and a lot of BS also. With my health I don't want to try and sort through it.

@Matt,

"The thing I don't understand about insurance is: It's there IN CASE something happens right?.. So why don't we get our money back when nothing happens?"

The closest that you can come to this is a mutual insurance company were the policy holders are the owners. Generally, the members of a mutual insurance company will get a refund check if the amount paid out in claims and adminstrative costs are less than the amount recevied in premium. For most insurance companies, however, this difference is referred to as "profit."

Edited by FlytePacker on 03/06/2011 21:31:46 MST.

"The thing I don't understand about insurance is: It's there IN CASE something happens right?.. So why don't we get our money back when nothing happens?"

Because when something happens to all the other insured, usually the cost is many times more than they paid. Also, many people rush to the doctor for stuff that is not really necessary.


Heathcare insurers make about 3.7% net profit (2009). That is not a lot.

How about Google at 27%, Microsoft at 25%, and Apple at 19%?

REI, which is a co-operative, had a net profit of 2.04% in 2009, which was $29.8 million dollars. Remember, this was AFTER paying out $67.2 million dollars in dividends to its members.

Friends, thanks for the feedback. But my main idea was for a new forum within BPL dealing with Health/Medical Issues. What do you folks in charge of BPL think of this idea???