Yes, you read that right. And we had insurance coverage for everyone last year, including daughter, 16, and my son who is 23 years old.
Let me break it down for you:
- Insurance Premiums……………..$14,179.04
- Prescription Costs…………………$ 7,198.00*
- Doctors Fees, etc…………………$ 2,068.49*
- Eye care……………………………..$ 404.28*
- Dental………………………………..$ 2,752.00**
- Mileage……………………………….$ 300.00
* Costs in excess of insurance coverage.
** No insurance coverage.
Our medical costs in 2010 were $18,636. The principal reason why our medical expenses in 2011 increased by such a large amount was because our insurance premiums increased from roughly $7,000 in 2010 to over $14,000 in 2011.
This same crappy, expensive health insurance will likely be cancelled because my wife’s former employer has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and has filed a motion with the bankruptcy court to cancel all medical benefits for retirees and their families. My wife is classified as a retiree because she became disabled as the result of her pancreatic cancer, and the surgical chemotherapy and radiation treatments she received in 2006, and was unable to return to work. The story of her disability is described in detail at this link. Fortunately she is covered by Medicare, but we will lose even this crappy insurance coverage for myself, my daughter and my son.
I have a rare autoimmune disorder that unfortunately was not properly diagnosed until after the time had passed for me to file a disability claim with Social Security. Thus I am not eligible for disability benefits or Medicare. New York has a program for younger children that my daughter for which my daughter might qualify.
Because the insurance exchanges required under the Affordable Care Act will not go into effect until 2014, it is unlikely that my son and I can find insurance until then, assuming that the Supreme Court doesn’t find the ACA unconstitutional. I find this ironic, considering that the following information about “Romneycare,” the health care program put in place in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was its governor, and on which the ACA was based, has just released :
Massachusetts residents who participate in the state’s healthcare program are seeing their insurance premiums going down by 5 percent, officials say. […]
Currently, Massachusetts has the highest level of healthcare coverage in the country with more than 98 percent of its residents having healthcare insurance, but ranking as the 48th lowest state in the nation in healthcare expenditures.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/04/14/Mass-healthcare-premiums-down-5/UPI-83201334422081/#ixzz1s8WDvB6H
Perhaps my family should move to Massachusetts. I know I will seriously consider it once my daughter graduates from high school next year, particularly if the Supreme Court strike down the ACA, or (assuming the Supreme Court upholds the ACA) Republicans manage to repeal or otherwise weaken it. I’m 55 years old and essentially uninsurable because of my existing health conditions. I can risk going without insurance for 2 years, perhaps, but it would be foolish for me to wait until I reach the age of 65 (or 67) for whatever benefits might remain under Medicare.
A lot can happen in a decade to eliminate our social safety net benefits, despite the fact I paid FICA taxes during my working life prior to the end of my career due to my disability. As we all know, the Republicans in Congress have no desire to keep social security and Medicare benefits in place for anyone my age or younger. They are all on board the Paul Ryan budget express, which would increase our deficit while also increasing our health care costs and more Americans would lose health care coverage.
If ACA is repealed, or the Ryan/Republican budget is implemented, millions more will go without access to health coverage and care.
That’s millions of people who are more likely to die because of Republican and Conservative policies regarding health care. Our family can barely afford $26,000 in medical expenses now. How much will our medical expenses increase if the Affordable Care Act is voided by the Conservatives on the Supreme Court or repealed by the Republicans in the future? Perhaps more importantly, how long can I expect to live if the ACA is not in place?
Clearly the Republicans and conservatives don’t value my “freedom to life” very highly, or yours for that matter. Just as they don’t value our freedom of speech, to privacy, to a trial by jury, etc. Indeed, outside of their concern for embryos, viable or not, in the womb, I can’t find one instance in which the Republican party or Conservatives promote policies that “favor life” in the slightest. Perhaps someone ought to call them what they really are:
The Pro-Death Party.
And did you get some letter explaining why your insurance was essentially doubling in price?
We got a thick pamphlet/booklet explaining our benefits last year (as we have every year). If I dug through it I’m sure I could find some rationale given.
Wow..
Nearly $7,200 for prescriptions?
My wife has type 1 diabetes and severe cognitive disabilities. The medications for those are very expensive.
OK.. I’m sorry to hear this.
I figured someone in your family may have a long term illness, but didn’t want to pry. Thankfully insurance covers some of the cost of the meds.
Without insurance coverage the prescription costs for my wife alone would have been in the neighborhood of $20,000.
I should add she also has blood pressure and cholesterol issues.
Steven, we’re in the same boat, save that I am on Medicare and Social Security Disability – but I have to work anyway, because SSD is basically a wash for the cost of my secondary insurance and out-of-pocket costs. I had to go into debt this year to afford my insurance, without which I’d be sunk – my prescription drug costs alone bill at more than $50,000 a year, starting with the three immunosuppresants. And that’s my baseline, “healthy” situation.
I’m 52, disabled, and for those two reasons alone have a very hard time finding steady work. If I’m thrown back on the private insurance market, I’ll die. It’s that simple. I’m uninsurable, and I can’t begin to afford the drugs that keep me alive. And the idiots who think I deserve to die, and that contracting a terminal disease at age 30 and then somehow surviving it is a reflection of my moral failings – and those idiots seem at present to dominate one of our two major political parties – can go fuck themselves.
“Because the insurance exchanges required under the Affordable Care Act will not go into effect until 2014…”
See my diary. Move to North Carolina where they already have the exchange up and running. I know they’ve already got a similar deal going in Texas, too. I don’t recall which state you live in but you might want to check the status. I never would have known “Inclusive Health” in NC existed if we hadn’t messed with the BCBS rate estimator for fun one afternoon.
Uninsured, we’ve paid out $24,000 in cash since September from an inheritance because of my husband’s declining health. Good thing his brother died, right? Or we’d be bankrupt already.
I haven’t done research on state-by-state status but I believe most of them aren’t waiting until 2014–that’s when the mandate goes into effect. North Carolina started out with 9 MILLION uninsured working people and there are 2 million who are paying more than they can afford like you are. That’s a significant pool and perhaps that pressure is what made it happen here as fast as it did. I don’t know…
He lives in upstate New York.
You should look into the high-risk pool insurance that was created immediately by the ACA for people in your situation.
Let me see if I can find more information about it.
I’m sure HHS will have more info than this (there’s a number in the post), you can email Deaniac too he seems all over this healthcare law
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2010/06/federal-high-risk-health-insurance.html
What a Joke! The “ACA” will increase health care,,,want to reduce health care costs?…implement Ryan’s budget!
Troll rated for personal nastiness.
Mass is sort of my plan B, too. But I fear that as this activist court gets going, it might eventually be derailed, too, even though it survived earlier challenges.
I wonder why the NY high risk pool plans didn’t work for you?
When we lose our health insurance (likely sometime this summer) I’ll look into them.
It looks like I have to have been uninsured for 6 months to be eligible. So that means the earliest I could apply would be in the winter, late 2012 or 2013.
I’m beginning to think your ability to keep your wife’s health care insurance is a mixed blessing at best.
I think it’s quite possible that it’s costing you ten thousand dollars or more compared to what you might get in the high-risk pool.
The New York pre-existing condition plan costs no more than $421/month and has no deductible. It caps your out-of-pocket expenses at just under $6,000/yr. Here’s the link.
You’d save about $9,000 on premiums alone. You’d save more on prescriptions, deductibles, and co-pays.
If you ask me, they can’t drop your health insurance soon enough.
Steven, mine is even higher if you add in the $12K or so that my employer kicks in to the insurance. And that’s with a much-maligned “Cadillac Plan”.
The insurance paradigm is totally inappropriate and actually contributes to rising health care prices. Notice I said prices, not costs. Many technological and demographic factors affect total cost, but prices for basic items such as 15 minutes of a doctor’s time, a day in a semi-private room, an ambulance ride, are determined primarily by what the market will bear. No one shops for the cheapest doctor nor should they. Insurance breaks the give and take of supply and demand. Nor should supply and demand rule unless one concedes that a poor person’s life is worth less than a rich person’s.
Health care should be considered a social service like police, fire, flood control, meat inspection, the military. It can be provided by private parties but only with strict regulation like the old Bell System.