Well, now I'm really mad. We have good insurance through my

[hedgehog]

husband's employer. I've thought that with several chronic illnesses in the family plus some surgery, we'd certainly gotten out money's worth. Then I took a good look at the info the company sent out this year. The company is switching providers and encouraging working spouses to sign up with their employers only (instead of buying secondary coverage). When I saw the monthly cost to my husband's employer and to us, I realized that even with monthly visits to specialists and a pile of prescriptions, we'd have been ahead if the company had just given us the money instead of buying a policy.

Oh, and that part about spouses buying insurance through their employer? I work for a really shitty company with a terrible group policy. It's expensive and only covers really catastrophic events. In fact, by the time you'd qualify for coverage, you'd be so busted up you wouldn't be able to work and would therefore lose your coverage! I only work part time, and now I know I should never work more than 29 hours a week since if I do, I'll have to buy my employer's insurance which is really a rotten deal.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Welcome to the world many of us have inhabited for a long time

It's not a pretty place.

At least you have insurance. Shitty insurance and expensive, but you've got it.


many of us have none.




TG

[napi21]

2. Well, it did say "encouraging" not MUST! As to the cost of

of the policy, that's what everybody has been complaining about for years!

Check the new provider's benefits. There may no be much of a diff. Most likely your husband's co. bargained a better deal with this new provider. All companies negotiate with multiple providers every year.

[Xipe Totec]

3. The only reason you still have, what little you do have, is that they're still making money

Trust me, if you cost more than you pay, they'd be looking for ways to get rid of you already.

[Demit]

4. What are you saying? You were happy to have your coverage when you needed it

and you thought you 'got your money's worth', but now you wish the company had given you cash instead? Why?

Maybe I'm confused by your use of tenses (we'd have been ahead if...) but it sounds like you think you are supposed to come out with a net profit on health insurance.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. I think the OP was saying they got their money's worth out of the old policy, but

the new policy is so bad that cash would have been better?

[John Q. Citizen]

10. Exactly. Insurance is a mob racket and they make the money, not us. It's a

continuing criminal enterprise.

Now they want us to bribe them with a trillion a decade in public moneies and probably at least that much on unfunded mandates on private citizens and employers so they will act in a slightly less criminal way. Such a deal, huh?

[lostnfound]

6. My company charges an extra $50 per month penalty if a spouse is covered under another plan

When you say "encouraging", do you mean via a penalty or just verbally encouraging it?

[NoSheep]

7. Can you do an HSA through your company?

"we'd have been ahead if the company had just given us the money instead of buying a policy"

[Warpy]

8. When most people add up the numbers

between cost to employer and cost to them and subtract the cost of everyday expenses, the difference is staggering. They'd have been way ahead if they'd been paid those premiums in wages and simply covered everyday medical expenses themselves.

Insurance is really supposed to be there for catastrophic coverage. Unfortunately, when catastrophe strikes they either weasel out of coverage or wait until the person is sick enough to lose his or her job and then end coverage. Health insurance is failing us when we need it most.

The solution isn't to go to high deductible catastrophic policies, either, since people tend to skimp on health care, getting sicker and sicker until they can't avoid getting help, often too late. Employers love this, though, since their premiums go down, they don't raise wages, and they just pocket the difference.

The system we have now is irretrievably broken and Congress is deathly afraid of the radical fix that is necessary. Unfortunately, the best we and your spouse can hope for is a slower than molasses, incremental type of change that might get us where we need to be long after we're all dead and buried, victims of something either preventable or treatable by a sane system.

[hedgehog]

9. Exactly! My insurance coverage is probably the best around.

It's not a "Cadillac" policy, more like a Porsche. The parent company was based in Canada and its plants were non-union. It offered insurance to match the Canadian standards and to remove any incentive for people to form a union. Even so, and even though we have a lot of medical problems which means our care costs more than average, the company would have been better off setting the premium money aside and paying our medical bills directly or else handing the money to us for the same purpose.

Now, consider this: every person working for this company is paying about $1200 a month to the insurance company. Some of that money could have gone to wage increases.

To sum up: up until now I supported health care reform because other people needed better coverage. It was the right thing to do for the country. Now I find out that I have a dog in this fight because of the hidden cost of my insurance.