I’m actually thinking of moving to a civilized country that doesn’t condition access to medical care on employment and wealth, but in the meantime I’m stuck in the United States.
I’ve been without health insurance before and didn’t freak out, but I’m feeling like it’s pretty irresponsible. First of all, please scare me into getting insurance because otherwise I might go without, since I’m unemployed and money is tight. Second, please recommend some plans. I’m in New York.
I’m not going to go off on a rant about the insurance industry just now, but I’m tempted. Anyway, if you are unemployed, you might well qualify for medicaid in your state. You ought to look into that first.
Being uninsured sucks. If you are hospitalized for anything, you will have to pay thousands of dollars. Treatment may be delayed because some hospitals will not treat you without insurance.
Even a simple medical test will cost several hundred dollars. You can’t afford to be sick and uninsured.
It will be difficult for anyone to recommend an insurance plan to you until we know where you are.
I realized that. Read the whole post please. 
I think I’m going to get a temp job soon. So I’ll still need insurance but won’t qualify for Medicaid.
The cheapest I got there was $284.22. Don’t tell me I’d have to pay that much!
Oops. Sorry.
Anyway, with your temp job, you still may qualify for medicaid. It’s worth a phone call. Here is a chart that shows income eligibility info and other useful stuff.
$284 is pretty darn cheap for an individual policy.
No its not. in my zip code policies started at $32 a month. A $1000 deductible is only $59 a month in my zip code. Jesus, why is health insurance so much more expensive in New England?
I must say that the low-end plans on that site are next to worthless. No preventative coverage, high deductible, high out-of-pocket, high co-pay. Bleah. If it’s all you can afford, ok, but you will be hating life if you need to use it.
Not really. An “A rated” $1k deductible, 20% copay $3,000 out of pocket limit PPO that covers virtually everything from ER to pre-natal for $55 a month. Then again im 24.
Looks good don’t it? Read the exclusions and limitations( oh, that’s right, you can’t, until you send them a check). Good luck trying to use it for anything.
Also, when figuring prices, don’t forget your deductable. Your first $1000 is a guaranteed expense, you must factor it into the cost of the insurance. So…
$1000/12 months= $83.33/month; plus the $55 premium means you’re starting at about $140/month-for crappy coverage, before your policy pays a single dollar for medical expenses, AND not counting the inevitable rate hike in 3 months.
Still think it’s all that reasonable?
Online health insurance: Bait 'em and switch 'em.
You also have to take into account the out of pocket limit of $3k, so up until you run up 11k in bills, you will pay $3k.
Hmm. i’d never been informed of this type of tactic (raising the price drastically in 3 months or so). Do you have any articles or studies on these types of tactics. I will try to look some up myself, but if this is true, why is this plan rated “A” by the A.M. Best rating system?
Here are the exclusions & limitations for the plan.
For Your Information Anthem’s Blue Accesssm plans do not provide benefits for services, supplies or charges
related to:
Consult your Contract for a
complete list of benefits, exclusions and maximum payment levels.
Realistically, what are they going to say in their ‘complete list’? “Also doesn’t include, ER visits, medications, physician salaries, or procedures done between 11am and 11pm?”
What happened to your attempt to get mass coverage for people?
THIS is what will get you. They will fight tooth and nail and tooth to prove that you didn’t have to go to the ER when you put a chainsaw through your calf, because you could have just bandaged it and gone to see your PCP in the morning; that you didn’t have to have an MRI to rule out a brain tumor when an x-ray would have done just as well; that you didn’t have to be admitted to the ICU when you overdosed on your medication, because the ER doctors should have just pumped your stomach and sent you home. No, wait- pumping the stomach is an expensive procedure. They should have just given you some charcoal.
All true stories, BTW.
What bobkitty said, also:
“- charges in excess of the maximum allowable amount”
Means that they can look at any bill and say “That’s above the max allowed benefit. We won’t pay” or “We’ll only pay X dollars of a bill that is 5 times X”. The 3K out of pocket maximum is also on “Usual, customary and reasonable” rates or “Allowed charges”. The insurance company can simply claim that a certain charge is “unreasonable” or “not allowed”, and boom! It’s exempt from the 3K limit while you still have to pay it.
You really do get what you pay for. This happened to my nephew. He and I had gone to a James Taylor concert on Memorial Day. He didn’t have a drop to drink. As he was driving home on the back country roads a car came over a hill with their hi-beams on. He felt his tires leave the road surface, and he overcorrected, spun out, went down an embankment and hit a very large tree.
He was life-flighted to Vanderbilt Trauma Center with a compound fracture in his left leg, two fractures in his right leg, 3 cervical fractures, damaged liver, broken right arm, all the fingers broken on his right hand, broke his palate in three place, broken the orbit of his eye and his cheeckbone, a scalp laceration that pretty much scalped him. I arrived on the scene before the ambulance did. He had someone at the scene call my mother and me and I stayed with him until they flew him away. He was in the trauma unit for two weeks.
Because of a clerical error made by his boss for his new job in filing the insurance paperwork, they said he wasn’t covered. TennCare, our local Medi-care, said they wouldn’t cover it hospital stay because it “wasn’t a true emergency”. For 6 months after the accident, he thought he was going to have to file bankruptcy (at 22 years old) because he had over $100,000 in medical bills. He had to fight with his company (he works for Comp-USA) and they finally got his insurance back-dated to cover the accident.
It’s almost a year since the accident and he’s still in almost constant pain. he’s got panic attacks when he rides in cars, and he can’t drive yet because of the psychological trauma.
StG
A friend of mine had just graduated from college, and got a job.
Then, he was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor. Because he had to take a lot of time off to be hospitalized for chemotherapy, his company fired him. I had no idea this was legal.
Because he lost his job, he lost his insurance. And had $400,000 worth of medical bills.
I cannot imagine that nationalized health care would be worse than this.
Unless it’s for an HMO with low co-pays.
In 1999, the plant where I worked for 24 years was closed. Under COBRA, I was offered a contiuation of HMO coverage that featured a $10 co-pay at the doctor’s, $10 for prescriptions, $35 for the emergency room at $303 for individuals and double that for families.
$284 for high deductible/ high stop-loss insurance is definitely high. But maybe that’s just a reflection of inflation over 4 1/2 years.
Insurance premiums go up at least 30% a year these days. Ask any small business owner. So, yes, it is a reflection of insurance premiums being inflated over 4 1/2 years.
I really hate when people do this cheap shot crap–starting threads that are really rants in places other than the pit so dissenters can’t really rant back without violating the “no ranting outside the pit” rule.
Suffice it to say, however, that I think the OP’s position is completely retarded.
Geeez.
Why should it not be legal for an employer to fire someone who cannot perform the job? If I couldn’t perform my job for an extended period of time, I wouldn’t expect my employer to just keep sending me paychecks.
Saying “Because he lost his job, he lost his insurance” is a little too simplistic. Your friend should (or should have) investigated COBRA.
The experience of one friend of yours is not really an argument in favor of nationalised health care.
alright, good response but why are these plans that run $59 a month rated A or A- by AM Best, which gauges how willing a company is to fulfill its obligations to its policyholders?
I dont know much about insurance, im sure they jack you at every change but if they fought tooth and nail at every turn i dont think they’d get ‘excellent’ ratings by an independent rating organization.