Health insurance rant.

[mylittlechickpea]

We have a couple canadian ships in the harbor right now...

Before I got married, and after I turned 19 (I'm 23 now, and got married 6 months ago) I had insurance for all of six months because I couldn't afford it at all, and the jobs I had held mostly didn't offer it

Glad I didn't get hurt, eek! The only time I did have it was to take my EMT course because it was required, and I somehow found a plan for the "young invincables" That was about $400 for 6 months...


I know my 400 for the six months I did have it is nothing compared to yours.... But to go out and find it on my own "just to be on the safe side" because the companies didn't have it, it was "only" $350 a month (a third of my pay-check at the time) and I think that was the absolute cheapest with the bigger co-pays ($35) and a detuctable of $1000 before they would actually start picking anything up and of course the 20%, and they wonder why people don't have unsurance. The above mentioned was for a supposedly healthy twenty-something year old... Pssshhhhh

 

[lockedhearts]

Quote:
Hubby's goes up every year and now we have a deductible we have never had, co-pay went from $20-$30 and non life threatening ememrgencies in the ER are not covered. We are NEVER sick so we never meet the deductible! It sucks!

 

[cmjust0]

Insurance is just access to a discount -- THAT'S IT. And we pay DEARLY for it..

Just read the little statement thing you get from the insurance company after a doctor's appointment.. They try to confuse us with terms like "provider responsibility" and "allowable amount" and so forth, but what it comes down to is this:

Let's say the doctor would have billed you $150 if you came in for a quick visit without insurance.. Well, your insurance company already worked a deal where he gets the insurance company's customers in exchange for a discount, so he agrees to an "allowable amount" on pretty much all the servies he offers.. Let's say he'd agreed to an "allowable amount" of say $50 on whatever he did for you that day, making the "provider responsibility" $100.....which is just big talk for a $100 discount for insured customers, basically.

So the insurance company is down to only paying $50....and they actually make you pay $20 of it through a 'co-pay'..

So now they're out $30...which means they got paid $700 that month to go 60/40 on a $50 doctor bill with you..

And the real kicker comes at the bottom of the page where they toot their own horn and claim to have saved you $100..

Here's a thought...why don't the doctor's offices just drop their bill to $50 for everyone, thereby allowing us to save that $700/mo we used to have to pay to get that discount, and then we'll just kick in the other $30 ourselves out of the $700 we're able to keep in our pockets?

Too logical?

 

[Show Me Chick]

I love my insurance company!!! Without them I would be screwed. I pay about $500 a month on a individual plan. I have Ms and one of my medications is $1500 a month but I only pay $30. My other meds are just $10. Dr visit is $20 ER is $100.

 

[Mattemma]

I don't like our insurance either.It was raised and now they cover NOTHING until we show proof of spending 3k.Not even our medicine is covered.Once we do spend 3k they will pay SOME of our medical bills,but usually they don't pay.We added things up and it will take a year to meet our deductible,and then ofcourse the 3k starts all over again.We might get a month where they will pay something.
Dh keeps it for the what ifs,but my own *what if* is "what if they don't pay when we really need it?" Like for cancer,an accident,or a infectious disease that gets one of us in the hospital for days or weeks?!?!?! What if all that paying into the system will be for nothing?

Ofcourse now with my dh having Type 2 D there is no way we can even shop around.We are stuck with what we have and have to hope for the best....or cancel and hope for the best.

Hope it all works out for everyone.We all should have a right for some basic decent care.We all pay so much.What frustrates me in addition is people who cheat the system and get free care.My moms boss does that for his family.He has 2 restaurants and yet his wife and kids get free state insurance.Maybe they lie,because we looked into it and no way we could qualify.

 

[WriterofWords]

Quote:
My regular co-pay is $30, it was $15, but ok,, that's not bad, and I don't have any complaint about my prescriptions, most are $2 - $5 except for my Maxalt and that $70. I guess my biggest complaint is that the deductible keeps going up and if I had $350 to pay for a CT Scan that would be great,, but last year at this time, that same scan was included on my insurance like a regular x ray. My hospital deductible went from $50 - $500 plus 20%, and they can tell me to pay whatever they want at the hospital and I'll be reimbursed,, I don't have it to pay upfront to be reimbursed,,, The emergency visit went from $25 to $100 plus 20%. It's not the companies fault,, it's my school district trying to save money by making us pay more for what we need and pay higher amounts for our insurance.

 

[Wifezilla]

I am self employed. I don't have insurance. If I get sick, I pay cash. If I get really sick...oh well. Good incentive to stay healthy.

 

[MoSo]

Stuck with the policy we had before because we are self-employed and have been turned down by 5 companies (basically for being in our 50s - the reasons stated in the refusals were beyond stupid: DH once had prostatitis - imagine that, a 55yo man who had a brief bout of prostatitis! How unusual!). Currently we pay $1,200 per month for the two of us, with a $5,000 per person deductible. No prescription coverage, no dental, no vision. It actually went down last year, but next year I expect it to go back to the $1,500 per month.

I've run the numbers for just dropping all insurance and paying as we go - if I look BACK 10 years, we've been healthy enough that self-insuring is not a problem, but, unfortunately, we're getting older, not younger and I can't assume we'll be as healthy going forward as we have been. We do get the insurance co's negotiated rate (even though we pay out of pocket).

If I develop that Parkinson's-like illness my father had or the breast and colon cancer my mother had in their 50s and early 60s, I'd blow through that payment and deductible in a couple months. And if I drop this insurance, I doubt we could GET insurance again. We're well-enough off (ie: we own our house) so we can't qualify for the state-run high risk pool.

Good thing we don't have a mortgage, because I doubt we could pay that AND health care at the same time. Tying affordable insurance to your employment status is just beyond stupid.

 

[Organics North]

Yep self employed.. OP should not complain! I will not even begin to express how deeply disgusted I am with Health Care in the United States of America.
I recall seeing an interesting graph in National Geographic. Plotting cost of health care against life span. I wondered where the USA was on the chart. Well I had to look off the chart!!!!!!!!!!! Life spans like third world countries and costs way way in excess of any socialized medicine nation in the WORLD.

DA something is WRONG.. I do not care what your political persuasion is.. IT is a broken system!
I really encourage anyone who thinks everything is fine to try and go buy health insurance on an individual or family plan... Bet more than half of you can not even buy it unless you go to a state subsidized or "socialized" plan.

Grrrrrrr.. upsetting subject..

ON

 

[Southernbelle]

Our premium went up and my husband didn't get a raise this year, either. (Single income household)