My current insurance is awful. Very expensive, lots of hoops to jump through, and lots of things not covered. This is because I quit my job and went back to grad school, and my family is now on the student health plan. Fine, you might say, that was your choice. True enough. My last job provided excellent insurance with which I was very happy. Frankly, giving that up was a huge disincentive for my going back to school to further my career, which I would argue is a reason for public insurance. Why should my family have to suffer with crappy health insurance and no dental - not available to me - because I made a decision that ultimately will benefit us and quite possibly the country, down the road?
My family is extremely happy with our current insurance – Medicaid. While we were unemployed and making barely anything, we qualified for Medicaid, and for medical care it’s been far better than any other insurance we’ve ever had. We’re somewhat disappointed with the fact that we’ll lose it now that we’re students again and have jobs as grad assistants…
I’m currently covered under Tricare Prime, which is what one of the so-called “public options” may look like. It’s similar to the VA in that the vast majority of the doctors I see are government employees or active-duty military. If I need care in the civilian market, I get it, generally at low or no cost out of my pocket. It’s also not terribly restrictive; if I need care, I get it.
When we’re not covered under Tricare Prime, we’re covered under Tricare Standard, which works a lot like traditional insurance. The only thing I’m not crazy about is that it’s difficult to find a private physician who accepts it. When I tried to find a doctor last year, one large practice wasn’t accepting new patients, and I couldn’t get an appointment at another large practice for six months. I finally found a doctor I like who has a small solo practice. They know me, I know them, and I’ve been pretty happy with the care I’ve gotten there.
I’m a Peace Corps volunteer, and Peace Corps (US Government) takes care of my health care.
It’s awesome.
This is one of my hugest complaints. So much of health care dollars go to people not involved in providing treatment. You hear the usual crap about competition benefitting the consumer, but I don’t buy it with health care, where I believe the majority of folk are very ill-suited to be intelligent consumers, determining what care is “needed,” and how much it should cost.
From what I learned in this thread, US prisoners must be very happy indeed.
That so many law-abiding US citizens are not so happy is surely a strong argument for reform.
I am, so far. However, I work for a pretty big corporation who provides insurance at a decent rate, and I’ve been relatively healthy (outside of a few growing older than 40 issues).
That said, I’m in the middle of another getting older issue (possible gall-stone) so I’ll have to let you know how I feel about everything after I (probably) have surgery. I’m not sure how much I’m covered for that, but the ultrasound I had this morning cost me $15.
And that said … what difference does it make how happy I am with my insurance? I’m not one of the 45 million (or whatever it is) who are un-insured/under-insured. I’m sure knowing that I’m okay will give them some comfort, but lets just hope none of them get a gall-stone.
For the most part? healthy people.
I have no health insurance; haven’t for about six years or so. I’m 29 years old.
I try to not think about it much, and fortunately I’m a healthy person; I haven’t had a need to go to the doctor at all in all that time; not for antibiotics, nothing. Of course, something minor like that on occasion I don’t think I’d have any problem paying out of pocket for.
However, if anything came up involving a hospital stay, or a more expensive procedure, I don’t know how I’d manage it. I mean, paying for care for a broken bone I’d probably have to borrow money from family. (if it’s of interest, I earn between 12-16 thousand dollars a year at the moment).
I would think that even people with private insurance who are happy with it might be concerned about future illnesses/injuries, and how their insurance experience might change. Such as this lady.
Although this is an anecdote, I know people who have had similar bad experiences. Family friends in Alaska had “great” insurance until she got breast cancer. They’ve lost their insurance and the business they worked for 30 years to build. Oh, and her cancer has come back.
Group Health here. Not at all happy. It’s expensive; it’s a nuisance; my doctor’s recommendations are often questioned leading to delays in getting treatment or meds. We’re talking about completely ordinary stuff here, like get a prescription filled for Advair (I have asthma). I had to take the company’s recommendation for meds first, and fail on them (and very nearly end up in the hospital) before they would let me have meds that would actually work for me and had been proven to work for me when an previous insurer had covered them at a previous job. Advair, which has been working like a charm, is “not on their formulary.”
Its like an umbrella made of toilet paper. On a windless day, it can protect you from the sun, somewhat. It rains, you’re boned.
I have great inurance! They have pleasantly surprised me often and, not once, have I been disappointed.
That said, I tend to be in favor of UHC. I think health care is like food and everyone should have a good level of both as a base.
I say that because I truly believe it…and I also know that my health insurance could go away like that…and if I had to try to replace it it would be impossible or extremely expensive due to my family’s pre-existing conditions.
Mine works fine until I have to use it. We pay quite a bit for a PPO too but it still seems like they deny care haphazardly. I’m happy with the doctors I get to see and the services provided but I am not happy with jumping through hoops for billing and denial of coverage. They keep retroactively denying coverage and I have to waste time to call in to fix it.
For example, it is cheaper for one of us to cover the kids. Since I take them to the bulk of doctor’s visits then I’m the logical choice. We switched my older daughter from my husband’s insurance to mine four years ago. My younger daughter has only been on mine. During that time, our company switched from Blue Cross coverage to Blue Shield coverage. So neither of my children have ever been covered by my husband’s Blue Shield plan. Yet most of our well child checkups in the last year have been denied by insurance. The reason? That our daughters are not covered by their Dad’s insurance. I have to call in and speak to them and then they blame the doctor’s office and then I have to point out that I have the form from the doctor right here and it clearly shows that it was submitted under my insurance. And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t and I have to call in again. My younger daughter is 14 months so we’ve done quite a few well child visits in the past year.
When it was time for me to go to the hospital with my first pregnancy, the insurance company told the hospital that I needed to be pre-approved and they had no record of it. Without the pre-approval then it would be out of pocket. I was cranky (go figure), got on the phone and basically yelled at them. My doctor had gotten the pre-approval, I had called in to confirm it and now they didn’t know? I told them that they had enrolled me in their maternity program and I was getting flyers from the insurance company-how could they seriously argue that they didn’t know? They backed down immediately.
My second pregnancy was rougher - I had hyperemesis. The insurance company kept denying the one drug that worked well until my HR department went to bat for me (five months that they didn’t have to pay and five months that I lost weight). But that was almost five months later after jumping through so many hoops. I am convinced that they were just trying to delay since the issue would be resolved within the next few months. And again when I reached the hospital- no pre-approval. I again took the phone and this time they quickly explained that it was all just a mix-up and they had found my pre-approval :rolleyes:. Of course they then denied my claims and it took multiple phone calls (after delivery) to straighten it out. I hate the fuckers for that. My problems with the well child visits seem to have come up after the expensive pregnancy.
I don’t understand how they can repeatedly receive a claim under my insurance, switch it to my husband’s and then deny the claim because the person receiving insurance wasn’t covered by my husband’s policy. That seems fairly deliberate to me. It always gets resolved but it’s a pain in the ass.
My husband and I are self-employed (for now), and have no health insurance for us as we make too much for Medicaid. Our two kids, however, are on Medicaid - or SCHIP, I can’t discern which one - and it started out horribly. I tried to get a doctor referral for my son, and the Medicaid lady could only give me a street address (not a city), and a phone number w/no area code. I could not for the life of me figure out in which one of the dozens of surrounding 'burbs this doctor worked!
However, the kids were soon switched to a Medicaid/SCHIP HMO. We have been very, very pleased with the level of service we’ve gotten from them. Our son has had very minor health problems, but the HMO still calls us every few months to follow up on his potential need for care. They strongly encourage annual wellness visits too.
If nothing else, I think the government should work with people in our situation who make too much for free healthcare for ourselves yet way too little to buy coverage on our own. We could afford (barely, but hey, its something) to chip in $200-300 a month or so for our own coverage - yet the status quo says you either have to be dirt poor to get great coverage -or- spend well over $1000 per month to get crappy coverage. There is just no happy medium, it seems.
In any event I will have work-based coverage for the four of us here in approx. 60 days once I start my new job.
Oh, oh! That reminds me.
When my husband and I were separated, I tried to get private insurance for my daughter (I’m disabled, so wasn’t able to get her covered through insurance with a job). After many, many phonecalls to various insurers here in Florida, I learned that no private insurer in this state would cover my daughter for any amount of money. Why? Because she is Asperger’s. Never mind that there are no expensive medical treatments for Aspie’s. Never mind that she has not seen a doctor for anything Asperger’s related (she saw a psychiatrist for a few sessions at her old school’s insistence, mainly to be evaluated for ADHD).
She’s now covered under my husband’s work policy, as is he. I am hoping for a public option in part because hubby doesn’t make lots of money, and, as my disability progresses, I am likely going to reach the point where I can’t be by myself all day. If a public option becomes available (or the law changes so that private insurance has to take my daughter), my husband won’t have to work outside the home, can mebbe finish school, and I won’t have to pay someone else to come and take care of me when the time comes.
Of course, I would expect to pay premiums even on a public option, and will probably choose private insurance over a public option if that is a possibility. Just like I am sticking with my private insurance right now even though I have Medicare, in order to do my little part to save our government money. I’m sticking with them even though they drive me crazy with their foolishness.
My insurance is okay right now. The drug plan is pretty sucky, but I don’t have many prescriptions.
My health insurance is pretty good right now. But I’m terrified that if I happened to be layed off, after just a few months of unemployment I’d be unable to get health insurance. That’s why I’m strongly in favor of some form of insurance reform that covers everyone.
I had Kaiser for a while–it’s the only thing I could get through my workplace–but didn’t like it. Now I pay out of pocket for an Anthem Blue Cross PPO. More money out, and a high deductible, but more choices, faster services, no waiting for authorizations or referrals. I have their Dental PPO as well.
I’m self employed and we get our health insurance through my wife’s job. We have no complaints as it has covered us and our three kids with no issues that I can remember.
We pay around 400 monthly and pretty low co-pays. It would be great if it were cheaper, but I think that we get good value for the that we contribute
I think that a lot of them could afford if they wanted to but choose to do otherwise. That’s no concern of mine.