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Oreo missed Meow Monday yesterday. He was too busy prepping for the Queen’s Jubilee. We will share his experiences next week. Meanwhile, I want to talk about healthcare. Healthcare in this country is not cool. I have been spending a lot of time with doctors this year and they are friggin’ expensive. It makes me grateful that I have health insurance (even if I have the co-pay). I didn’t always have that option. When I was pregnant with Joanna (my younger daughter), Frank was unemployed. His Cobra was finishing and I needed to find other options. I tried contacting insurance agencies to see if I could find affordable health insurance. It turned out I couldn’t find any health plans for the unemployed. That’s not completely true. I could find plans for the rest of the family but apparently, I was uninsurable. Pregnancy qualified as a preexisting condition. In our case, we got lucky. Frank found a job through Indeed.com and got employer-provided health insurance. But it was a scary month. After Joanna was born I had some serious complications so not having health insurance would have bankrupted us (a story for another day). Fortunately, we had health insurance and were able to keep the house. Things have changed since the early 2000s. The Internet has created a broad marketing for health insurance and made it much easier to research options. Do you have health insurance? What are your thoughts on healthcare in the U.S.?
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Posted on 14:29, June 5th, 2012 by 
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the whole preexisting condition thing really gets me. I had two different instances where the insurance company didn’t want to pay because they claimed it was a preexisting condition. The funny thing was it was for something I had never been to a doctor for in the past. I hate insurance companies.
When I split from my first husband I went a couple years without insurance. The dermatologist I was seeing at the time had 2 different charges. One for people with insurance and one for people without. I knew this because they had written an amount on my chart and the doctor said no, give her the no insurance rate
You do not want to start the publicist on this one. Since she has had two brain surgeries and lives with a chronic pain condition and progressive brain disorder you tell her whether she can find insurance….
I am glad I am a goat. Although I will admit that if I see the male person coming at me with a big smile on his face and his hands behind his back I run. The last time he did that he had a NEEDLE for me. I don’t like NEEDLES.
as i came from a country where there is really no healthcare for the poor, despite the imperfect situation of healthcare here, i actually still appreciate it and somehow wishes that one day, the people in our country would have the same privilege here where no one would die in the hospital untreated just because they have no money. but i do understand entirely how healthcare here can be very expensive and can bankrupt one without insurance. so far, i had never been in a situation without insurance, thankfully.
The only way I can get health insurance as the owner of a very small company is to lease myself from an employee leasing company. As an “employee” of the leasing company, I can get on their group plan. Leasing myself as an employee of my own company is complicated and expensive. This is the only way I can get insurance though, and these days you definitely don’t want to be without health insurance.
Health care in this country is run by insurance companies and lawyers, plain and simple. Everything is based on how much money everyone can make off of each other.
We have good health insurance, but I see the ravages of those who do not. It’s madness.
My sole recommendation to everyone is NEVER, EVER pay a doctor, lab, or hospital bill without negotiating a discount. EVERY single one of them will negotiate if you pay within 30 days and you can save a LOT of money that way. I have seen anywhere from 10% to 70% discounts. They want their money–even a little bit of it. It’s worth asking!!
When I was pregnant for DJ, and very naive I might add, I had just started a new job and health care was not made available for several months. Then when I was eligible as you said it was a pre existing condition and not covered. Trust me I was stunned. Since I did not qualify for Medicaid with a job, I had to pay all the bills myself. It took over 11 years to pay them off. Once the doctor took me out of work for delivery and then recovery, I was able to get Medicaid. But at least the c-section was covered under that insurance. I think insurance in this country is the biggest racket going. It is highway robbery, and that is all I will say, because I could literally go on forever.
I also have read all the comments above, and yes they are true. Betchai on a sad note some hospitals will refuse to care for you if you are uninsured and can not pay. It happens. Yes there is a fee for insured and uninsured, that the doctors bill for. You would think uninsured would be less. No it is like five times what an insurance company would pay for. Which brings me to the point of the commenter who said to negotiate before you pay. Yes, Yes, Yes. I wish someone had told me this 12 years ago. Tell them you will pay what an insurance company would normally cover. Most will say yes, but you have to agree to pay within the time limit you agree to. If you do not, they will come after you.
Luckily I have health insurance but I’ll be damned if I rarely use the sucker. It doesn’t cover GYN visits and that pretty much covers my once a year, hi how you doing doctor visit. I mean up until recently with my back problems being aggravated and my TMJ it’s worthless and I’m paying a buttload of money every month for it. All is resolved now though, no back pain and oral surgery does not want to do the TMJ surgery so life as it was before. Now if I could just get rid of this virus on my cornea I’d be golden, which by the way, health insurance doesn’t cover.
We do have health insurance. As our country continues to move away from lots of big companies that provide affordable insurance from families, I really hope that insurance companies start offering more affordable packages that people can buy into as individuals or families. It’s ridiculous how few options there are for people who are self employed or who work for start ups without a lot of coverage.
We’re very fortunate that part of my husband’s retirement from the Army, after 25 years of service, includes lifetime health insurance. No exclusions for pre-existing conditions, and children can stay on it until age 23 if they’re in college full-time.
We do have health insurance through hubby’s work, but it’s ridiculously expensive just the per-paycheck payments to have the privilege of coverage, then along with the co-pay we have a $2500 deductible per year, so as far as I’m concerned it’s pretty bogus. The only other option was Blue Cross Blue Shield – but they decided last year to raise the rate of pay-in by 47%…and since there were no raises to the employees last year (and the year before was a whole whopping 3% raise) we decided to sign up for the alternate insurance which doesn’t really do us much good – aside from not sucking his whole paycheck away before he gets it. The Health Insurance in this country really does suck pond water.
Every year, our insurance payments go up and the benefits go down. I thank God that my son also has Medicaid. With his special needs, we have a lot of medical expenses for him.