Today, Miss Britt started a dialogue about our right to health care as American citizens. Her post made me pause and analyze my family’s health care situation. Some would say we shouldn’t complain because we have insurance. Let me tell you something…it comes with a cost.
Over the last eight years my family’s life has changed dramatically. Eight years ago we lived on one income easily…with money to spare. We had great health insurance coverage with Dude’s employer. He paid $240 a month and we had $5 co-pays for doctors visits, $100 in-patient hospital stays and $50 ER co-pays.
In eight years the cost of our health insurance has more than doubled. Dude pays over $500 a month for our coverage. We have $40 co-pays for doctor visits and pay for a lot of things we NEVER paid for like 10% of surgery, $1,000 co-pays for in-patient hospital stays and $500 ER co-pays.
Yet in TEN years Dude’s salary has only increased $5,000.
Here we are eight years later living again on one income in a very different time with a catastrophic illness that is draining our financial resources. Just this year we have paid over $10,000 out of our pockets…and we aren’t done paying the medical bills off.
We are lucky that Dude works for CORPORATE AMERICA. His company has the resources to offer their employees health insurance because although Dude is paying over $500 a month for our insurance, his company is also paying a portion of our premium.
On average it costs an employer $12,000 a year to provide one employee with health insurance.
However, it’s that time of year where we are holding our breath. Soon we will find out what the benefits are for 2009. My guess is much higher premiums, less coverage and more our of pockets. And even with health insurance, my illness is catastrophic financially.
That’s just one aspect of our health care situation…
The other side of my family’s health care coin is not just with the co-pays, which stack up quicker than pancakes on a Sunday morning, but with WHO can treat us. We started out eight years ago with an HMO where in an ideal world our Primary Care Physician (PCP) would coordinate and make all REFERRALS in an attempt to control health care costs.
Last year we were pushed into Consumer Driven health care. Like we were supposed to take the reign and THINK about the COST of care before actually getting care. And in order to make sure we THINK we no longer paid co-payments but to THINK we pay 10%.
But we still can’t THINK without a REFERRAL from the Primary Care Physician.
In all honesty I believe that part of the reason I’m battling cancer a THIRD time is due to the EPIC FAIL of the health care system I have to battle to access care. Just a part of the reason.
So, when people criticized me for worrying about money maybe my critics will understand better why. People without access to health care have poorer outcomes than those who do have access to health care. It’s a FACT.
It’s my opinion that insurance companies are a large part of the health care crisis in the United States. Malpractice suits and malpractice insurance are another problem crippling the system. I don’t know if Universal Health Care is the answer but at some point there has to be some standardization and some regulation.
It’s time for SOMETHING to happen with health care but with the economic crisis at the forefront will anything REALLY happen or will health care take a back seat just like it has for the past eight years?
{ 21 comments }
