Health Insurance in America
I know I typically post about family but today I want to post about something that really upsets me and has a huge effect on our family…health insurance. Josh and I get our health insurance through his employer. The premiums for our family are $1250/month. That’s right one thousand two hundred and fifty each month. Josh’s employer covers about $350/month for Josh leaving us with a $900/month premium that we pay out of pocket. It has been a real burden on us to cover that each month especially considering Josh is off work on a work related injury and we no longer get the benefit of the premium being tax-free. $900/month is a mortgage. We could own a house for the cost of health insurance each month! So to start my long saga here, I decided to search for less expensive health coverage. I did find that Blue Cross Blue Shield offers a plan where I could have myself and the kids on it for $300/month. I figured with Josh’s employer covering 3/4 of the cost of his insurance we would have a total monthly output of only $410/month instead of $900. A savings of $500 bucks a month. So I filled out the application and sent it off. To my complete shock I got denied. Six years ago when I was pregnant with Jakob, Josh & I were hit by an uninsured motorist. I had pain in my back and hip for quite a while, I received treatment under my uninsured motorist policy. Apparently, even though I haven’t been seen for that injury in years, I was denied because of “a history of back problems”. That really ticked me off. If I was going to be high risk for that issue I would be cashing in with the health insurance I currently have which has better coverage. I decided to go ahead and make a call to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon to ask why. I talked to a lady there who got in touch with the underwriter. I was then told I needed to submit “records that show the condition has been resolved”. So I made an appointment with my doctor, had my back examined and received a clean bill of health. He then wrote a letter for me to submit to Blue Cross stating that. I was told the underwriter could take up to 30 days to “redetermine” my eligibility. Today I received a letter from them stating that “According to our Individual plan underwriting guidelines, we are unable to accept any individual with a history of back conditions.” If this is true than why did they waste my time and money asking me for a record showing the condition has been resolved? Why didn’t they just tell me when I called the first time that they don’t cover people who have had a history of back conditions.
This nation is so messed up. I am 32 years old, completely healthy and I cannot buy individual health insurance. I have to make decisions on whether I should carry health insurance and rent a tiny place to live or cancel that insurance so my family can have a place to thrive, and to be honest at the rate the premiums are increasing each year I don’t know how much longer we can even afford to carry health insurance. We live in America where corporate greed comes before anything else. Many say we live in the greatest nation in the world. I beg to differ. What nation throws the sick on the side of the road for money. I’m not even sick and I’m tossed aside because of a very small “potential” that I may cost some money. What a load of crap. It got me thinking about this… health insurance is needed by the sick but only offered to the healthy. If your healthy now and have health insurance don’t think your safe…they won’t hesitate to cancel you when you get sick. Something really needs to be done about this. I am working on some ideas but for now I am going to make a call to the health commissioner and all of my state representatives. I urge you to do the same in your states. If you don’t know who your representatives are visit http://whoismyrepresentative.com/
Here is a video with Peter Jennings before he died called “Breakdown – America’s Health Insurance Crisis”.
If you haven’t seen Sicko you really should. I don’t care if you’re republican, democrat, conservative or liberal this is and will affect you or someone you know if we don’t do something to change this in our nation. The United States has become a nation where the government no longer cares for it’s citizens but instead the success of large corporations and the cushioning of the bureaucrats pockets. I for one am sick of it. This time in America’s period has been the first time in my life that I can honestly say I am not proud to be an American. It doesn’t mean I don’t love this nation or that I am not patriotic, but that I realize I live in a nation that no longer looks out for the good of the people but instead for the good of only the wealthiest. Our political leaders should be ashamed of themselves for not only allowing theses companies to operate this way but even more because they have done nothing to change it! Below I have included a clip from Sicko.
Sicko in it’s entirety has been posted on YouTube in “parts”. If you’re interested check it out or go rent it at your local video store.
2 Responses to “Health Insurance in America”
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and i’m a 63 year old (or 64) who hasn’t had health insurance for many years … and i’ve needed it. I’ve been stupidly sitting thinking… we’ll start making money and I’ll go buy us some insurance … now i read your information and realize … even if I won the lottery… I may not be able to get health insurance. Awhile back I saw a headline: “Third World Country Makes Basic Health Care Available to All” …. Basic Health care… My wife and I could use some of that… but we can’t go to the doctor and I’m not an illegal immigrant so I can’t just run to the emergency clinic cause I woke up in the middle of the night with chest pains … or a couple of years ago fell on a wet slick step and hit the back of my head on the top step creating what sounded like a broken neck .. with serious pain and all the hallmarks of a broken or cracked neck… I’ve worked my entire life and raised kids all who are fighting for health care rights and gettin slapped in the face by the companies… Listen to the Republicans keep Health Care in the hands of the insurance companies and keep destroying the basic American…the working class American. Or listen to Jesus and reach out and help not just the poor but us middle class folks …… or am I dreaming … was it that we were once middle class… ohhh yeah .. that was when I could go to the doctor; fill my gas tank and make a house payment and maybe once or twice a month go out to eat or catch a movie … maybe we are now less than Third World … maybe we’re all poor and haven’t recognized it.
Thanks George W and all your rich Radical Republicans….
GOOOO OBAMA!
Lee
Here I am 33 and for the past three years on state assistance to pay for my health insurance premiums. I can’t leave the plan I am on cause of what are now considered pre-existing conditions.
I every year would call down to the state agency for assistance and guidance in my application. This year especially I needed help because I didnt want to break the rules and get denied the states assistance. I did what the women on the phone told me. They also told me that the person I should talk to was unavailable. That I couldn’t talk to the people who really knew the answers only them. I did what they told me. I was denied assistance by the state.
I appealed and the states “independent” person in the department said she could not believe what I wrote and did not do an investigation as a result. She basically, and where she didnt say it said it all the same, thought I was lying.
I wrote a letter to her manager which ticked her off and was the only reason she called. After that I took the appeal process farther. And now it stands that even though they lied to me, misrepresented, did not give me ALL the details they should have over the past three years…I am still denied assistance from the state. It doesnt matter that it is a serious matter and they are now forced to change the rules, policies, procedures, methods of dealing with members and changing things to reflect real life situations…I am still denied.
I dont know if I still have the option of going before a judge and pleading my case. The one woman told me that the judge gets all the information and decides without talking to me. That the judge will talk to them but not me. I did what they told me to do. Had they been honest with me I would not be in this position.
Now I am faced with paying the entire premium on my own. Because of my pre-existing conditions I dare not leave the plan I am on. Not even to go to a group plan.
So the agency that is supposed to be there to help people in effect sided with big business. I dont know what they thought but I got screwed in the process. There is one manager there that is trying to think of a way to make this up to me since I think they have proof of the conversation in which I was lied to. I think they said that one day on the phone. Either way I really thought the state agency founded to help people in my income bracket with health insurance would do just that. Only I was wrong.