Racism experience

So I was waiting at the bus stop at the campus for bus MT 65 that would get me to campus parkway from where I would catch another bus. I arrive at the bus-stop at 7:05pm and the bus comes at 7:09 pm as scheduled, but hold it right there.. The bus doesn't stop, it slows down, the bus driver knows I am waiting to get in to the bus, but he doesn't stop.
This is not the first time that a bus has skipped the bus stop and on both ocassions I was the only guy at the bus stop. And on both ocassions it was the same driver.

How do I know? On the first ocassion, the bus driver slows down but doesn't stop. I run after the bus and wave to him to stop. He stops after going some distance and asks me as I get in, "If I knew English" and that I am supposed to "wave my hand" to stop the bus. Wow, that's a new rule right. I mean, I am standing at the bus-stop looking towards the bus, you damn well should stop.

The second time, that is the incident that just happened, the bus slows down and speeds away. I am totally incensed, and since I know that the next bus-stop, the "HUB" is not far away, I sprint after the bus and catch the bus as it stops. And why does it stop at the bus-stop?? Because someone is getting down there. I get in and surprise surprise, it's the same guy. I give him a long stare and decide to complain against him to the King county Metro guys.
As I get down at the last bus-stop, I ask the bus-driver for his name and he ofcourse doesn't give it to me. But guess what, according to him, I could note down the bus number and go ahead and complain. You can clearly see his intentions here, "I don't give a damn about you, I am going to be the way I am". And I do just that. I report him to the King county Metro guys.
I am going to be here for a while atleast until I complete my phd. I am being peaceful here, going about my work everyday and contributing to the research and to my department. I don't see why I should tolerate such incidents and I won't.

US medical system - A perspective

I had a bike fall on November 8th 2007. I was taking a turn and the roads were really slippery and I somehow lost balance and crashed. The right half of my body took most of the impact, since that's how I landed onto the ground.. I had deep cuts on the right side of forehead, a few bruises on the right cheek and minor abrasions on my right shoulder. I lost consciousness for a few moments, but then was admitted to the University of Washington Medical center, thanks to "American Medical Response", a private ambulance service that has billed me $612.25 for picking me up, ascertaining my whereabouts, checking my condition and dropping me off at the medical center, a kilometer away. Anyway, my "insurance" is supposed to offset such monstrous costs.

The medical center conducted various scans - CT head scan, CT angiography for the neck, CT head scan 2 and Xray for cervical spine to check in detail if vital organs of my body that took the impact during the fall were unaffected. I am told that I am allright - Great. Now, they stitch my cuts up which is wonderful and I am sent off, less than 12 hrs in the hospital. When I reached home, I looked into the mirror and realised that despite the stitches and ointment application, a dressing would have helped, since blood was oozing out here and there and an overall patch up would have made me get on with life. I went back to the medical center and the nurse there was reluctant to give me a dressing. I am baffled, I tell him that the least he can do is patch up the wounds. Finally he gives me a few bandaids and says that he is not supposed to give this, but that he is doing me a favour.
I just wanted to get over this injury and get on with life, so I didn't give much thought to that.

Two months later, I get a bill. Get this: the Xrays and CT scans, etc cost 662$, which is supposed to be "fine" if you have insurance, but I am charged $4283 for "hospital usage"??? What the heck. Even if I were to have insurance(covering 90% of the cost) , how the hell can you charge $4283 for hospital usage, I was in the hospital for hardly 12 hours. Does it make any sense?
Can any one tell me how in the world this cost could probably be accounted for? Assume for the present that there is no such concept as insurance and people pay from their own pocket the costs incurred for medicare. Also assume that the hospital charges came out to $428.3(10% of the original cost), people will find this cost to be simply too much. They can't resort to, "Do you have insurance? It should take care of most of the cost". And if the hospital charges did come out to $4283 as in my case for a trivial treatment of minor injuries (we are not talking of bypass surgeries here), they will instead simply rebel. Insurance just makes the costs look better. As another example, I was asked to come back a week or two later to get the stitches removed. I went to the medical center at 9 pm, since the waiting room seemed crowded I asked the receptionist if I could come at say 11 pm. She told me that there would be an extra charge for emergency room check in beyond night hours. I asked her how much that would be, she just said, 'oh don't worry about it, it would come in your bill and the insurance would cover it'. Well, it was included in the bill and I was charged $120 for that. So if I were to say that insurance would cover 90% of that cost and I need to pay only $12, it makes the overall picture rosy and beautiful, but it fails to explain how they came to charge $120 in the first place.

I recently heard in a lecture that institutions in US including universities and medical centers have to pay negotiation teams hefty fees to prevent people from sueing them million dollar suits for whatever reason (improper medical care, etc). So that, these fees are passed on to people using these institutions, students paying hefty tuitions in the case of universities and patients paying astronomical bills in the case of hospitals. I am not sure on the credibility of this reasoning but I can't come up with a better reason(or let's say other reasons) for the medical center charging me $4283 for hospital usage.
I just came across this article that reflects a trend for American patients seeking medicare abroad for the same reason I posted this blog. Hmm.