Do You Have Health Insurance?
Some people have health insurance, and some people don’t. Do you have health insurance?
• Greg Barto
I didn’t have it for years, but I have it now through my job. I pay $50 to $75 per paycheck, I think. I don’t know how much it costs to go to the doctor because I haven’t been.
• Zack Cohn
I have Easy Choice Health Plan aka Healthy NY (it has two names I guess?). It costs $241.44/month. I have a $20 copay. I believe I get one physical a year covered and I recently found out that I have some network of bottom-tier doctors I can visit and receive some measure of coverage from, but I haven’t investigated it yet.
• Mike Dang
Mine just ended last week! So I’m going to have to find something that will work for me and my left ventricular arrythomogenic cardiomyopathy. Or pay $700 a month for COBRA.
• William Foster
I do not have health insurance, as I am immortal and immune to injury and disease.
• Carrie Frye
Yes—my husband and I have insurance through our corporation (employees: us). Having a corporation with just two employees is probably overkill, and the paperwork is a pain, but one benefit is that the company can pay for health insurance. We pay $800/monthly for a shared policy, which is high! I don’t know—I looked rickety to the insurance company. Also: We keep a who-knows-might-have-a-baby rider on there that adds a couple hundred dollars a month (my understanding is that if a baby never materializes, the insurance eventually refunds you a $50 Zingerman’s gift certificate).
• Emily Gould
I have Freelancer’s Union insurance. I pay around $400 a month. For more incomprehensible information see here. My plan is PPO 3.
• Cord Jefferson
I do indeed have health insurance through my employer. I have the HMO plan, which costs me somewhere around $32 per month. If I’m remembering correctly, my plan has no deductible and a copay limit of $1,750. And my annual out of pocket maximum is $2,000. Of course, this could all be incorrect. The details tend to be hazy, as I avoid going to the doctor unless I need to crawl there (I’ve also been very lucky to be healthy for most of my adult life).
• Lisa Lenner
I have it through work. I pay about $66 per paycheck ($132/month). It’s a PPO, which I probably don’t need… but I like having it. Two years ago when I got my tonsils out, I didn’t have to pay for any of that, which is awesome since it was a totally optional surgery. I didn’t need my tonsils out. I just didn’t have anything to do at work.
• Bennett Madison
I get insurance the most practical way—by having a day job! I don’t pay anything for it because my boss pays the whole thing. Before I had a day job, I was going to get it through the Author’s Guild which at the time seemed relatively cheap, but I never got around to it.
• Amy Merrick
Girl you always know the questions to ask to make me feel crazy. No insurance.
• Jennifer Pan
I am fortunate enough that my job gives me health insurance! I’ve never bought my own—just lived stupidly without any insurance when it wasn’t employer-sponsored. :(
• Matt Powers
I am still on my parent’s health insurance thanks to President Obama increasing the amount of time children can stay on their parent’s health insurance (26). I’m only really insured in Massachusetts, so I can only go to hospitals or “urgent care” if I’m in an accident or really sick or something, and then I have to pay the copay which is usually like $20-$40, but because I am incredibly healthy I’ve only used it once while living in New York. I don’t pay for my health insurance because I am not a person.
• Bryan Rogers
At my last job, I paid $0. The company paid 100% of all premiums for employees and all dependents (!!!). That’s pretty much unheard of. At my new job, I pay $45/month.
• Nancy Rommelmann
Yes, I have health insurance. Here’s why and how: As a freelancer, it was never available to me. I mostly scraped by without, as did my husband Din, who never in his life had it. Then he launched Ristretto Roasters , and we figured we’d offer it. We use Kaiser, an HMO, with a $3k deductible, but you get pretty much everything taken care of for a $25 copayment when you visit. We provide it for our employees if they work 30 hours a week or more. They pay $52 from each paycheck (every two weeks), so $104 a month, which we match. It does not include dental, but it’s seriously great coverage, everything from routine tests to surgery. We’ve been really happy with it. We can also cover people’s spouses (domestic partner or marriage) and kids. It’s by the person so, for instance, Din, Tafv and I pay a family rate of $624/month, because of course we are paying our own copayment. Din and I could pocket the money we pay for our employees and take an extra trip to Maui, but as my dad says, we offer it because it’s the right thing to do, and because no one ever did it for us.
• Alex Sachon
I have an independent plan through Kaiser Permanente. It was $132, but they just increased it to $164. I’ve never used it once. I called, and they said in order to find out why, I had to FAX THEM. I understand on some level why health care costs keep rising, but for bare bones health care, for someone who NEVER HAS USED IT, why on earth should it increase each year? I find it really upsetting.
• Logan Sachon
I have a plan through PacificSource, which is a company based in the Pacific Northwest. I got it when I lived in Portland and they haven’t kicked me off yet even though I no longer live in Portland. I pay $132 a month, and I can go to the doctor for $30, but have to pay for all tests and everything because my deductible is $5,000. I’ve never reached it, probably because my policy doesn’t cover mental health, and that’s where all my medical dollars go.
• Nozlee Samadzadeh
I didn’t have it and now I do! I’m on my parents’ health insurance because it doesn’t cost them extra for me to be on it. I actually thought about it a lot before doing it—I WANTED to be independent, but it added $6,000 to my salary not to have insurance through work, and doesn’t cost my parents anything extra. Hooray Obama!
• Angela Serratore
I have health insurance through school (I am pretty sure people only go to grad school for health insurance). I pay 700 bucks a semester, which is a not-small amount to me, but any appointment I make with a school doctor is free—general practitioner stuff, but also I go to a university with pretty great medical facilities, so I’ve yet to need a specialist that hasn’t existed on campus. Co-pay for not-at-school doctors is 20 bucks, and I think I paid 10 dollars for my last prescription?
• Choire Sicha
I have it through Aetna and pay $150/month. I went with it because it cheap and easy. It covers like nothing in the day-to-day, but after a huge deductible, it covers 100%. Like, if I get cancer, I spend $5K. Then it covers everything.
• Eric Spiegelman
I have been a 1099 for a few years so no benefits. I got a private policy from UnitedHealthcare (which is PacificCare in California). My premium is like $200 — not sure exactly how much because I have the bill on autopay so my coverage never lapses. I’m stuck in traffic right now so can’t check my deductible, but I know my copay is $40. At the moment I do not have dental insurance or vision. Once upon a time I was on TimeWarner’s rockstar policy, which would send an ambulance if I stubbed a toe, and I tried to keep that on COBRA until I realized it cost $650 per month. COBRA: not really that helpful!
• Edith Zimmerman
I have Freelancers Union insurance, and I pay $345 a month. I have a $30 co-pay and … I’m not sure the other stuff! Shit.
I have said this before, but it bears repeating: you need to have emergency coverage at the very least. I’m looking at you, William Foster!
in 2010, an otherwise very healthy 27-year-old me came down with what I thought was the stomach flu (it was appendicitis). I thought I was getting better (psych, my appendix had ruptured, flooding my body with awfulness for almost a week). I ended up spending two months out of work, & I would’ve had $200k in medical bills if I’d been uninsured–& if I’d actually taken my uninsured ass to the hospital instead of just toughing it out (in which case, I’d be dead now).
no matter how careful & healthy you are, your appendix is a jerk, & it can try to kill you with absolutely no warning. so add that to the list of you-could-get-hit-by-a-bus reasons to have emergency coverage, & get thee to the health-insurance-atorium, stat.
@nonvolleyball that sounds so awful! Maybe we should all get our appendices out as an SOP, like wisdom teeth? Because I don’t like the idea that a useless part of my body can suddenly decide to kill me for no reason.
@themegnapkin the problem is that surgery itself is also potentially risky (& a “normal” appendicitis–where you get it taken care of before it bursts or immediately thereafter–is usually a fairly minor ordeal). but there are definitely docs who will remove it if they’re already in there doing something else.
my tagline the whole time I was in the hospital was that your intestines are like Vegas: what happens in there needs to stay in there. so the moral is: go see a doctor if you have any kind of sudden/unusual pain! (& don’t go to the doctor I saw a week before I went into the ER, who apparently was too incompetent to diagnose something I could’ve figured out myself if I’d spent some quality time with Web MD.)
@nonvolleyball Oh lord, that’s terrible! Two months of recovery!! And you went to the doctor a week before going to the ER and they didn’t catch it?!? Sorry you had to go through that. My appendix ruptured when I was 28 and in a stroke of incredible, incredible luck, I had gone back to school to finish my BA and actually had health insurance for the first time in my adult life (I went off my parents’ insurance when I was 21 I think?). I didn’t have a super-easy time of it: they were so distracted by and obsessed with my reproductive organs that it took them about 10 hours in the ER (!!) to be sure that it was my appendix and not any internal ladyparts/pregnancy problem, by which time my appendix had actually ruptured so I did have to stay in the hospital for two days after the surgery (as opposed to other people I’ve heard of who were in and out in less than 24 hours) and was in bed for the next 5 days or so at home. But that sounds like nothing compared to what you went through!
Even though I had insurance, it only paid 80% of some of the most expensive stuff (like the hospital stay) so I’m actually still paying for it five years later (I’m on a payment plan with a rather small monthly payment because of my rather small income…). But if I hadn’t had insurance? I’d likely have been charged more and have to pay for it all out of pocket! That said, if you are really in dire straits, some hospitals are willing to work with you to write a portion of your bill (or even all of it) off as charity but, ugh, no one should bank on that and it’s probably best to have some sort of insurance, especially (as you said) emergency coverage!
@Katzen-party yeah, it was…bad. the doc I initially saw thought I just had the flu, & when my appendix burst, I assumed that I was finally recovering. (sometimes when that happens it relieves the pressure, so you feel better…until you don’t.) you were in surgery for longer than I was, though! I had two, about four hours each (although the second one was very much about “oh, um, your ladybits have been marinating in infection for a while.” I had to sign a form authorizing them to remove all that stuff if it would save my life–very glad they didn’t have to, but the jury’s still out on how functional everything still is).
oddly enough, today is the two-year anniversary of my first release from the hospital: I left work the morning of 4/13/10, went straight to the ER, & then didn’t leave the hospital ’til 5/8/10. then I was still having fevers & ongoing issues once I was at home, so I got re-admitted for another five days at the end of May. I went back to work in mid-June, but I wasn’t really myself (or at a remotely normal weight) ’til at least July/August. & my body’s still a little wonky in some ways, but I have no illusions about the fact that I’m lucky to be alive.
to bring this slightly more on-topic, though–I have an HMO which, I know they’re not perfect, but holygod are they great if you’re unexpectedly hospitalized for a damn month. they have a flat $500 copay for hospital admissions that covers EVERYTHING. as in, my first stay cost the same amount as the second–which is a little ridiculous, but overall pretty great. I was also fortunate enough to get short-term disability pay while I was away from work–60% of my salary, which is a hell of a lot better than nothing.
but the final itemized bill was $228k. which is terrifying. I mean, not having insurance would’ve absolutely ruined my life (or, even more likely, ended it–because would I really have gone to the ER that readily if I knew I couldn’t pay for it? I don’t know. & waiting even a few more hours might’ve killed me).
get insurance, everyone!!!
@nonvolleyball Just saw this post so I’m a little late to the party. But yes, your appendix is basically just a time bomb waiting to try and kill you. Even if you think you are a very healthy person. Last November I woke up with a terrible stomach ache, but I’d been having stomach pains for months so I just thought it was worse than normal and went back to sleep. A few hours later I was in agony and spent 18 hours in the emergency room before finally being diagnosed. (My doctors were also obsessed with my reproductive organs and I got 2 pelvic exams as well as an internal ultrasound. I was told it could have been any number of things that would have meant I couldn’t have kids even though I had all the textbook symptoms of appendicitis. Also was told that I might have gonorrhea…I do not, nor did I even have any symptoms.) It was a very horrible 18 hours for both me and my boyfriend and they actually were going to discharge me before some surgical resident ran in the room and was all “hold up!”
I was very lucky that when they finally decided it as appendicitis and I had surgery my appendix had just perforated a little bit and they got all the poison out of me before it caused any real problems. Still though, my bill was $27k of which I only had to pay $300 in co-pays. It’s not as bad as $200k, but it still would have ruined my life at least temporarily to suddenly have that much debt.
Uh, how the fuck do I have the priciest insurance of anyone even the fellow Freelancers Union people??? I am calling up FU and dialing it down. (Is it because I have dental? I go to the dentist for absolutely free)
@Emily Gould@facebook SOME PEOPLE HERE are DOING IT WRONG. Although, honestly, I think that if I was a lady, I’d get slightly more expensive insurance, that would cover the costs of my lady business.
Holy damn! I had no idea independent-type insurance cost so much. No wonder people go without it all the time. I was on my parents’ insurance, it kicked me off when I turned 22, and now I just pay ~$60 a month and the company I work for covers the rest. Now I’m even less inclined to follow my non-day-job interests in a for-a-living capacity, sheesh.
@probs Can you get back on? I got kicked off at 22 also, in 2008, and got back on when I was 24 thanks to Obama and pals. My dad had switched jobs in the meantime, but I don’t think it mattered.
@whateverlolawants I think I could, but I have pretty good health insurance with the company I work for. Otherwise I would be all about that, thanks for looking out!
This is officially my favorite site (is it weird that my favorite site is about fiscal responsibility?).
One of the reasons I am hesitant to ever work for myself or a small company is because of health insurance! I am generally healthy, but still. Health insurance! It terrifies me not to have it. My boyfriend freelances and he does not have it and it worries me to no end.
That said, I pay $75 a month for Kaiser, which is the cheapest plan my company offers, but it’s not bad. I do the usual annual checkups and I think it’s a $15-20 copay.
But holy crap, freelancer’s health insurance. So freaking expensive.
I just quit my corporate day job to Pursue My Dreams, and so until recently the insurance from them covered both my wife and I for $299/month. This included dental and got us $15 copays on specialist visits. Now we’re switching to the insurance from my wife’s non-profit job, which costs us $593.20/month and charges a $40 copay for specialist visits, plus there’s separate dental which costs $63.76 a month. Ugh, I didn’t realize how much of a difference this was making until I typed that all out.
On the extremely minor plus side, my old work took my share of the health insurance premium out of every paycheck, whereas my wife’s does it only twice a month, which means there’s one paycheck a month that’s a lot bigger and feels like free money, whee!
@jfruh also, because I am an Old, I can offer data points on how much worse this has gotten in not that much time: when I got my first real job (in 1999, at age 24), which was for the same giant company from which I just quit, my share of the insurance payment for me as an individual was $28.17/month. When I got laid off in 2001 and bought insurance in California on the individual market (thank God for no pre-existing conditions!) it was $64/month. When I moved to Maryland in 2002, it was $140something/month. Stuff keeps getting more expensive!
@jfruh Woof, $300/month each is pushing it. It’s really not a terrible idea to analyze your actual medical expenditures in the last year.
@Choire Sicha@facebook Yeah, but what if it’s This or Nothing (or the individual insurance market, which is terrifying to me, since we’ve both, like, seen the doctor several times over the past 10 years)? I mean, we’re both pushing 40 and this is the time when Bad Things start to happen and you can’t really just hope that, well, we didn’t get sick last year, so probably we won’t next year either, right?
In my mind this is a bridge until the fabulous Insurance Exchanges arrive in 2014, Anthony Kennedy and the electorate willing, though I’m not sure if those will be any cheaper (or even available?) to a childless couple well outside the poverty range.
@jfruh Holy damn, I just realized you’re THE Josh Fruhlinger! The Comics Curmudgeon is my muh’ fuhn jam. I cried from laughter when Crock called you out the other day.
Connectionnnnnnns
@probs aw, thanks for saying nice things! Sadly, Comics Curmudgeon LLC is not in a position to offer health insurance.
Seems like the freelancers union folks are paying a much higher rate than if they just did an individual HMO plan like Kaiser. For those for whom this is the case, why do it?
@Alex Sachon@facebook Freelancers union means no exclusion for pre-existing conditions, I think? (Except doesn’t New York State already ban that?)
@Alex Sachon@facebook Well, there is no Kaiser in New York. (Kaiser left the eastern seaboard in 1999.) (Also, some of us who have lived in California and had Kaiser think IT SUCKS.)
@Alex Sachon@facebook If you live in a state with complicated insurance laws (like NY), especially in an upstate county, those rates are CHEAP. My insurance plan, discounted through my employer, is more than $800 for an individual.
@Alex Sachon@facebook I am also pretty shocked by the high rates for the Freelancers union. I’ve been a 1099 person for years. I had coverage first through HealthNet (a PPO with $50 copays), but the premiums kept creeping (and sometimes jumping) up every year (especially when I turned 30, ugh). When they got up to about $205 or so, about a year ago, I switched to an individual plan at Kaiser for about $130/month that doesn’t cover anything for the first $3000 or so out of pocket. I realized it didn’t do any good to be paying an extra $75 every month in order to save $75 on the rare occasion that I do go see a doctor. So now I’m paying the minimum (well, not quite, because I have the “maybe baby” clause) per month, and in return I have access to the whole Kaiser monolith and coverage in case of emergency. But any kind of preexisting condition or ongoing health problem might change that kind of tradeoff.
@Limaceous That “maybe baby” rider blows my freaking mind. 50% of pregnancies are unplanned. They are making so much money off uber-responsible people who want to plan for every possibility AND the unfortunate (or lucky, perhaps) folks who get a surprise pregnancy. Dammit, babies are a part of life. Deal with it, insurance.
Wow–this situation really sucks, I think. I live in Canada and I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW MUCH MONEY YOU ARE PAYING. Universal healthcare is so completely worth it.
@Sister Please tell that to the people who are suspicious of Canada’s system. I bet everyone here already believes you. We need to spread the word. Our system SUCKS.
Ooh, this is relevant to my interests because I’m definitely taking the freelance plunge this year. I’ve done it before and paid for my independent health insurance to the tune of about $125/month (in Minneapolis, in like 2005-2006?). I’m sure it’s way more expensive now. The best part about my desk job is the amazing benefits.
Also, Nancy Rommelmann gets one billion gold stars. Still, I pine for the day when health insurance has absolutely nothing to do with employment.
I am currently unemployed and live in San Francisco, and the city has a subsidized health care program for low income residents called Healthy SF, so I’m on that. They insist it isn’t “insurance,” but there aren’t that many differences. One biggie is if you get sick or hurt while outside the city and go to an ER, you’re shit outta luck. But aside from that, I have to say, I’ve had the best health care through them than I ever have before, and I’ve had insurance my entire life.
Price is based on income and you pay a quarterly fee. Most doctor visits are 20 bucks, and meds are 10 bucks or less. You can see specialists and it’s covered, as long as you get a referral. If “Obamacare” is anything like this, I don’t see how anyone could be against it.
(And sorry for the double posting…my comment seemed to disappear for bit there…)
My husband and I both get health insurance through my employer and pay ehhhhh $480/month. $15 copay, $25 specialist, no deductible, mental health, abortions (very important!), decent-but-not-great prescription coverage. My husband is a benefits administrator and gave me a good talking to when I didn’t switch to a cheaper plan with a deductible last open enrollment, but my emergency surgery three years ago and his emergency hospitalization two years ago has given me an irrational fear of surprise medical expenses. Seriously, you young people, PLEASE GET INSURANCE CRAZY STUFF HAPPENS. That said, now that our savings have recovered from The Economy, I probably will switch next OE. I seriously feel for the self-employed/self-insured here, especially those of you outside of MA.
I’m about to quit my job that pays for my health insurance to work for a company that is so new, they can’t legally get insurance for their employees. Except, I really don’t believe this is real. Is it real?
Luckily, if it’s not real, it will be MY JOB to acquire health insurance for everyone.
I can’t even believe how awesome my health insurance is! I’m a customer service agent for an airline, and my pay is not great, but my health insurance is through Aetna and I pay less than $50 a month. My co-pay is $20 for general stuff & $30 for specialists. It covers just about everything including if I get pregnant. I have free dental care & could have very cheap vision insurance if I wanted it.
I feel a little better about my mediocre job today!
@whimseywisp What are your flight benefits like?
I pay $50/month for insurance through my work. Unfortunately, our plan has a $2500 deductible, so it has never paid for a single solitary goddamn THING for me. And I work in retail so that deductible equals more than 10% of my yearly net pay, and I actually make more than at least half (and probably more like 2/3) of the other people at my work who are eligible for the plan! One sort-of cool thing that my employer has though is something called a health reimbursement plan, wherein they deposit $500 for each employee on the plan per year that can be used toward eligible health expenses (ie, stuff that the plan would cover if you hit your deductible). And the $500 rolls over at the end of every fiscal year if you don’t use it (or only use part of it). Also, we have GREAT dental insurance–most things are completely or mostly paid for (though I’ve never had anything more major than your average filling done thus far). But yeah, having a $2500 deductible is basically like not having insurance at all and paying $600 per year for the privilege, plus any medical expenses up to $2500 (or $2000 if you use your reimbursement money).
I work in insurance (I’m licensed, though anyone who is can tell you that that doesn’t necessarily mean anything)! COBRA (which is what I was working with when I started where I work now) is the most ridiculous thing in the world. I could (and occasionally do) literally go on and on and on about why it sucks and the horrible situation it puts people in. The only time it didn’t suck was for 15 months under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act but that ran out last August and now it pretty much blows for everyone. In some really unique circumstances it can actually be moderately priced, but I’ve seen it be up to something like $2k a month for some people.
Anywho, healthcare.gov is actually a pretty decent resource for finding generally how much cheaper you might be able to get your individual insurance plans if that’s your situation. And some individual policies will offer a dental/vision benefit or discount of some sort or you can seek out specific discount plans for dental services.
Ooh, the insurance issue. I never had a job that gave it to me until about 8 or 9 months ago, and couldn’t afford to get it myself, and I wasn’t too worried about it until I landed in the hospital for a week out of nowhere. Gonna be paying THAT bill off forever. INSURANCE IS SUPER IMPORTANT. I finally have it through work now, and it’s a decent plan – $15 GP/$30 specialist, awesome prescription coverage, though for some reason it doesn’t cover contraception, which is so stupid I can’t even, and no dental – but I pay $150/month for it, which is CHEAP compared to you freelancers, but it’s still more than 10% of what I make in a month. One day I really want to freelance full-time and having to buy individual health insurance scares the crap out of me, especially since after my hospital fun time last year it is NOT optional for me anymore.
What I’m getting from this whole conversation is that America is terrible at health care. Just the worst.
@moreteawesley Yeah, this is exactly it. It’s optional until you’re caught in a jam, then you realize going without it is a game you’re eventually going to lose. Sometimes it’s necessary, but ugh.
I badly injured my wrist in a period where I had no insurance and had to half-ass it with a $20 splint from the drugstore and no hospital visit. Dealing with constant daily pain for two months and worrying that I’d never me able to turn a doorknob again with that hand is NOT an experience I’d like to go through. (It got better, but it’ll probably never be 100%, and I’ll probably pay for it later in life.)
@Leon Tchotchke Not an experience I’d like to go through AGAIN, I mean.
I’m lucky. After getting booted off my dad’s insurance at age 22, I had individual coverage, and I was briefly covered at a job that didn’t work out. I went abroad and my job in Ecuador gave me health insurance for $30/month. It seemed pretty good, although basic doctor’s visits there are comparatively cheap anyway. ($30 for the dermatologist, and $20-30 for the GP, I think. Prescriptions were comparable to here, although everyone pays differently here depending on their plan, so who knows?) I mainly had it in case of emergency.
When I returned to the US, I got an individual plan briefly until the beginning of 2011, when I could be added to my dad’s plan again thanks to the Affordable Care Act. (During the time I was off his plan, he was laid off. He was given a period of time during which he was still covered- something like six months or a year- and then COBRA eligibility for a while too. A good severance package, at least.) It was a relief to be covered, even though his company was bought by another holding company and this year we were switched to a confusing-as-hell plan that covers less. $5000 deductible? At least there’s 4 of us on there, and I’m the least medically needy. :(
I was freaking out a bit knowing I turn 26 in October, but then I got a promotion and am eligible for the health plan. It will cost $80-100/month and have a deductible of $250 or $500. It seems like most things are covered, and dental is quite cheap. I’m so relieved… and the best thing is, I found out I can roll onto my work plan immediately after I’m kicked off my dad’s. This is a huge relief.
So, in sum, I am incredibly lucky. I don’t feel that great, though, because anything can change in the blink of an eye. Health coverage shouldn’t be linked to employment.
I have an HSA, which is my employer encouraging me to save some money to cover my own damned medical expenses.
@MuffyStJohn HSAs are the worst. That’s what I have at work now and it’s fine for the people in our company making a decent amount of money, but it means I’ve avoided some probably necessary doctor visits because I know I can’t afford it and haven’t contributed enough to my HSA to be able to reimburse myself.
@Katrina Hall@twitter Last week I sliced my finger open while cutting quilt fabric. It bled on and off for days. I knew I needed stitches, and I absolutely didn’t have the money in my bank account (HSA or other) to cover them. Fortunately it seems to have healed up OK with the help of neosporin and a lot of gauze bandages, but shit, I shouldn’t have to make that kind of decision.
Ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, hahahahahahaha.
I have health insurance, 100% paid for, through the largest health-care provider in my state. Which was great, until I hit the $15,000 lifetime deductible for tests/visits/hospital stays/surgeries in 2010.
Then I found out that this fine, fine insurance will cover breast implants, but not the prosthetic I use to protect my airway and allow for speech and swallowing (oral cancer). I’m still fighting the company to get at least some of the $21K I’ve paid for the prosthetic back.
Even good insurance can leave you badly in the lurch if there’s enough fine print and enough loopholes.
@Mingus_Thurber – Mingus that is freaking awful. Your story is just another example why we need universal healthcare in the USA.
@MuffyStJohn Sorry to hear about your situation! Depending on how, much your employer is having you contribute to your premium, it might be worth it to look for an individual plan; you can start at healthcare.gov and if you find something suitable on there a lot of insurance carriers actually have decently user-friendly websites for getting a quote/completing an application.
When you pay money to the payment protection insurance without knowing that it is not a needed one then it can be reclaimed by means of the expert ppi claims company
which gives the best advice in this case and help the clients if they feel that claims can be made possible in the particular case.
I have a health insurance and I am very pleased with it, I heard about it from a doctor when I was at IVF Austin. It`s the third year I`ve been using it and I had some health problems, it covered them all.