Health insurance costs up $500 a month

[Guest]

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[CrimsonMaiden]

An extra $500 a month? How much were you paying to begin with?

 

[Misty_Morning]

No, not the country.

Me. Us. My little household.

We signed contracts in May, things were fine. Then over the summer came huge cost increases, blah blah blah, and now we have the same services for this much more money.

We had to go back in to the administration offices to initial the changes.

The lady in charge said, quite perkily, "Just initial here. We want to make certain you agree with the new fees."

I just looked at her. I said, "Well, what can we do if we don't agree? Seriously. You have us over a barrel, don't you?"

She mumbled a reply. I wasn't angry, just resigned.

This is what always seems to happen. We make a few inroads at digging out of our financial hole, take extra jobs to pay off some things, plan better, organize and budget, begin to see some true progress and then this.

An extra $500 a month? Oh, sure. We can just absorb that.

Damn it, anyway.



(Yeah, there's no health care crisis in this country. None at all.)

That's an awful lot!

My current health insurance costs me about $23 every other week. My dental is just over $5 every other week.

Now, my last employer had the same provider and it cost me about $78 every other week for the same health coverage and about $18 for dental. But I later heard he was charging folks what the premiums were and then some.

As a federal contractor, I recieved a stipend every month fot health, dental and life insurance...so I actually got money back.

When I was married, I paid for the insurance and it never ran more than $225 a month for health and dental.

Maybe you should look into getting coverage independently.

 

[Tricialen]

My husband by himself is just $42.00 a month...add me on it and it goes to $298.00 a month....how is that right?....and you're right ...what are you going to do...I know...just don't by food....bastards!

 

[buxxxom]

And as you pay more, you get less and less coverage. Meds that used to cost ten bucks now cost twenty bucks. Some aren't covered at all. Glasses and contacts? Forget it. Braces? Not on your life. How come we pay more and more for insurance, then pay more and more for visits?

 

[Stella_Omega]

And as you pay more, you get less and less coverage. Meds that used to cost ten bucks now cost twenty bucks. Some aren't covered at all. Glasses and contacts? Forget it. Braces? Not on your life. How come we pay more and more for insurance, then pay more and more for visits?

It's because of freedom.

 

[Noor]

I pay $500/month at least until I run out of money.

 

[Guest]

. . . .

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I'm just stunned.

It makes best financial sense, since we teach in the same district, for one of us to stay as employee, and the other to go as employee and children.

The employee one is almost completely paid by the board - it just went up $35 a month.

It's the other one that skyrocketed. The fees more than doubled. Hell, tripled. This is out of the blue.

We need the coverage for the prescription drug program so we really are stuck, at least this year.

I just don't know quite how we're going to handle it, ya know?

It's a load.

Hell...prescription drug programs are going to shit...I was pay $25.00 for each refill. Then Walgreens started this drug savings program. $35 a year and the same drugs I was paying $25 a month for are $12.99 for a 90 day supply. So guess what, I joined the damn savings program.

Sarahh, you might want to check with whatever drug story you use...

Walmart has a program, KMart has a program, CVS has a program, Walgreens has one, etc. Like my drugs, yours might be cheaper through one of those instead of via you RX plan.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Blame the politicians.

The insurance companies influence politicians to mandate coverage for any and every quackery they can imagine. If one person in 10 million suffers from Cooties, everyone has to get Cootie coverage in their policy.

There are cheap policies that pay for 2 ER visits and 5 office visits, plus inpatient. I paid $10 a week for such a policy.

 

[rgraham666]

Move to Canada. We have public health insurance. It doesn't cover drugs but drugs are cheaper here as well.

*HUGS* beautiful.

 

[impressive]

Nope, no crisis at all.

I feel your pain. For the first time in my life, I had to find health insurance for myself. With great big red flags in my medical history like "Depression, Severe, Recurring" and "Metabolic Syndrome X/Insulin Resistance/Pre-Diabetic" ... well, let's just say that independently insuring myself would cost the equivalent of a mortgage payment on a small home. Not an option.

So, even though I'm making enough $ through writing/editing/cover art to support myself, I had to take a part-time job just to get the health insurance benefits. I literally work only enough hours to cover the payroll deduction of the premium -- and it's just catastrophic coverage. No extras.

Kids are all still covered under their father's policy, which is--as a federal employee--quite inexpensive and quite comprehensive. And eldest has Medicaid as a secondary. It covers his co-pays, which alone are more than we could afford out-of-pocket. Without it, we'd've been bankrupt about 12 years ago.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

My husband's insurance just changed again. Why? Because the company found out that people actually USED their insurance! *gasp* Those pesky employees! How dare they actually USE the insurance we provide!?

So they found some place cheaper.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Most big companies do a thing that's called self insure. That means the money you pay and the employer pay is banked by the company and pays administration fee based on experience out of that to the insurer. The employer then pays the costs the insurer has negotiated with the provider out of the account. The insurer is just a funnel for the funds and a group provider/negotiator.

 

[Guest]

. . . .

 

[DeeZire]

Friends of mine - family of three - mom, dad, grade school aged kid, were paying over $800 per month, until the rate went up to over a grand a month. She gets the policy through her job teaching at a private school.

Part of the problem with health insurance is the perception that you can get it independently for $10 a month. Perhaps 30 years ago you could, but not these days. I'm really happy for the people who's health care is subsidized by their employers, but that is not the real world that more and more people are finding themselves living in.

 

[Katyusha]

This is what always seems to happen. We make a few inroads at digging out of our financial hole, take extra jobs to pay off some things, plan better, organize and budget, begin to see some true progress and then this.

An extra $500 a month? Oh, sure. We can just absorb that.

I feel your pain. I really do. Every time we start to make progress on our hole, something happens as well. An emergency repair to the house, a doctor's bill that insurance wouldn't cover, a car issue, an interest increase, a new set of fees on something, you name it.

It royally, royally pisses me off. *hugs*

 

[Katyusha]

My husband by himself is just $42.00 a month...add me on it and it goes to $298.00 a month....how is that right?....and you're right ...what are you going to do...I know...just don't by food....bastards!

Same here...we're at roughly $350 a month. It'd be under $100 for just my husband. That makes me so sick. The whole situation makes me sick.

 

[Iamcanadian28]

Move to Canada. We have public health insurance. It doesn't cover drugs but drugs are cheaper here as well.

*HUGS* beautiful.

I couldn't agree more. It's probably the part of society north of the border I'm most proud of. The funny thing is that while people complain about our taxes here, we pay less per capita for health care and consistently have an overlal higher level of service. Funny how that is.

 

[incubus666]

High Costs of U.S. Health Care

Health care costs devolve to two major problems.
1. No one in the U.S. wants to wait (or should have to wait) for health care. I, for example, can get an MRI within the next coupla days if I set my mind to looking.
2. Litigious Society. Everybody sues anybody they can.

Under #1 above I am going to catch hell from my Canadian friends. Within the last year or so a Canadian woman was going to give birth to sextuplets. Nowhere in Canada were there sufficient neonatal ICU beds for this womans children. They had to move her to the U.S. (North Dakota I think) So she and her about to be born babies would have the care they needed. Plenty of neonatal beds in the Dakotas? WTF. Yet they are there just waiting for someone to need them!
A coupla years ago a Canadian man's Dr. thought he had a brain tumor and he needed an MRI to confirm the diagnosis. He was told he would have to wait between 3 and 6 months to get the MRI.
Can you imagine knowing there may be a tumor growing in your head and you may have to wait for upto to 6 months to find out for sure? I can't and nether could he. He came to the U.S. got his MRI within a couple of days. He did have a tumor and had the growth removed and was home in Canada recovering well before he could have had the MRI in Canada. Within tha last year a Canadian MP/PM needed cancer surgery and came to the states to have it done. You may pay less for it in Canada but you by God get what you pay for there.
Why the difference in cost between your hubby and you? Because he won't get "preggers" You very well may. Feel free to blame you state lawmakers and your state insurance board. They set the minimum requirment for coverage in your state. Want to get preggers and can't 3 states tp pay for invitro at $35-50K per try. Too old to get preggers and don't want to? The state may require the Ins. Co. to provide that coverage to all. Thus you pay a portion of that cost. Most states will not allow you to buy health ins. from another state unles the other state has the same coverage as your states requirements.As said before a lot is the fault of your state!

As to #2. I worked in a hospital for a long time. I worked with a Cardiologist for about 8 years. Lets call him Dr. Jones.I believed he was a damn fine Dr. When my ex-wife had what we thought were heart problems I took her to see him. I even had him evaluate me for potential heart problems.
A few years ago Dr. Jones had made his rounds of his patiences. As he walked thought the ER the Dr. Adams in the ER asked him about a patient he had in the ER. She was complaining of chest pain. Dr Adams thought from looking at the EKG she had pericarditus. An inflamation of the sack that surrounds the heart.
Dr. Jones agreed with Dr. Adams. The woman was discharged. Saddly she died a couple of days later.
The family sued the hospital, Dr. Adams, and Dr. Jones. Since state law requires a Dr. to establish a "relationship" with a patient to be sued he used that as a defense. The court (lawyers all) decided that looking at an EKG and speaking briefly with Dr. Adams (less then 2 minutes) established a relationship with the patient. So his malpractice insurance went up and so did his charges to you and your ins. co.

You said when the changes were presented to YOU. She saig blah, Blah, blah. Didn't you listen ? Pay a-fucking-tention. If you don't undstand make her explain it to you until you do. Many states have health care advocacy boards. Check if yours does and take copys to them. Have them explain it to you.
I am going to be a jerk! Take responsibility for your own life and your money. It is your responsibility. Don't ask a bunch of jerks like me on this board. Get you and your husbands shit together and act like a responsible adults.Should you need to hire a lawyer show her/him the papers you signed and get his opinion. Cost should be about $200 vs. $6,000 annually.

 

[Guest]

. . . .

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Same here...we're at roughly $350 a month. It'd be under $100 for just my husband. That makes me so sick. The whole situation makes me sick.

The difference in cost is because the employer pay most of the premium for the employee. It's part of protecting themselves. It's also the benefit part of the employee package. To cover the wife and/or kids, the employee must pay the bigger portion of the premium as it is deemed as less of an employee benefit. It deemed as a favor to the employee to offer and pay a small portion of the premium for the spouse and kid coverage.

 

[SeaCat]

You would think that working in a Hospital I would be getting some great overage. Not so.

For myself I pay $250.00 a month for basic coverage. (If I was to have my wife on my insurance it would cost me around $600.00 a month.) That's for a person that makes $11.05 an hour. (To give you an idea of the prices here a small one bedroom apartment in the Vest Neighborhood runs right around $1100.00 a month.)

On the other hand the prices for medicine are also incredible. When I visited the Clinic for my foot I was seen by an M.D. for a total of five minutes. She prescribed an Anti-Biotic and I was off. The cost for the Clinic Visit and the medication without insurance would have run me roughly $8K.

Cat

 

[rgraham666]

Sigh. Nice try incubus. Picking one extreme example and using it to prove that the Canadian system doesn't function at all doesn't work.

To my mind it's a simple matter of purpose. The Canadian healthcare system's purpose is to provide healthcare to Canadians. It's not perfect but no system is.

The American healthcare system's purpose is to make money. And it succeeds admirably at this. The problem is that it makes healthcare unaffordable to a lot of people. And to more and more all the time.

But people have a tendency to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There was a time when virtually no one had health insurance. It was uncommon here until 1970 or so. Yet nearly everyone got adequate medical care. And people didnt get medical treatment for superficial ailments, so there wasnt any long waits to be seen.