the worst feeling in the world....is to be sick and not to have insurance

[Horse with no Name]

I have a long-time chronic disease that is now under very good control. I have finally found very good doctors who manage my disease process and no longer do I experience the exacerbations that used to hospitalize me 8-9 times a year.
I also have had very good insurance.
Prior to the ACA....I maxed out 3 healthcare policies for the $1,000,000 cap.
Then I had to either find another job really quick OR have to spend an entire year suffering under the pre-existing conditions clause.
I couldn't go to the doctor and receive treatment or have a prescription filled because then the clock would start over.
Luckily I had understanding docs who helped me out most of the time.
In the middle of all of this other illness, I found out I had cancer.
Went through treatment for all of that and came out better on the other side of it.
Apparently it is what was making me feel so sick.
But...then my S/O's insurance changed. They tried to make it so that everyone would blame Obamacare. But the truth was....it was the employer picking a plan that increased our premiums, out of pocket costs and decreased coverage. This put our monthly healthcare insurance and prescriptions/visits costs to over $2500 month. Upon further investigating....this was the employer putting the screws to the employees. They actually decreased their contributions which forced them to choose a crappy policy.
So....fairly newly fixed from my cancer journey...I hit the job market.
I was so lucky that I landed the job of a lifetime.
Just accepting the job saved me $2300 a month in healthcare costs. Then the salary was twice what I had previously made in the previous job I had 5 years before.
But....I will never ever forget how it felt to be without insurance, with inadequate insurance, with pre-existing conditions, with having to leave jobs that I really liked simply because I ran out of insurance benefits, with insurance I could not afford and having to take COBRA benefits at times that I had to juggle food and rent to pay the premium.
I'm sickened that we are heading down the path that I thought was something of the past.
Although I have very good insurance presently, that doesn't mean that if the market changes, my coverage won't change.
Anyone that thinks that they are safe should probably reevaluate that EVERYTHING goes the way of Medicare. Everything.
So even if you aren't on it...you should protect it as if you do because if you let it fall apart---your health insurance will fall apart as well.

[AngryAmish]

1. Or throwing a right hook then remembering you were boxing a hooker.

That was a sleepy night for me.

[HoneyBadger]

2. That is also why voting against lower cost for the same prescription drugs is never an option

[Ms. Toad]

3. We got a teeny taste of that this morning (and the previous month).

Intellectually, I know that my daughter's expenses are enormous. One of her medications costs around $15,000/year [FWIW - an ~ $2,000 per year expense if purchased from Canada]. She's about to either switch to (or add) one that costs $42,000/year. On top of that she has multiple costly cancer screenings every year and will ultimately need a half-million dollar liver transplant.

We're lucky. The most we have ever paid was $9,000 per year - and live frugally enough/have been lucky enough to have jobs that cover the bills - that we could afford the year it was that high (thanks to the extension to insurance providers that allowed prescriptions to go uncapped for an additional year). She currently has insurance at $45/month that caps her out of pocket at $2,000 (and her employer gives her the first $500 of the out of pocket in a contribution to her HSA).

But her health issues resulted in a panic attack at work, and being terminated from work when she walked out rather than continuing to stay in a situation that panicked her. It took a few days to work out the ADA accommodation thing.

In the mean time, before we knew she would be reinstated we filled up her most expensive prescriptions for 90 days ($3750 +). Just in case. Turns out (1) they don't terminate insurance on the first day of the next month - it is terminate the day after her last work day. So had she not been reinstated we would have had to repay the $3750. I've never encountered an insurance plan that was not month to month - so it never occurred to me to check.

HR assured her there would be no gap in coverage - but they apparently forgot to tell the insurance company. So today - MLK day {i.e. insurance offices closed} she has the appointment with her new doctor for the new medicine. It has already has been delayed twice (starting in May). Her old doctor left the state - and delayed starting it since she knew she would not be around for the intense monitoring it requires. Meeting with a new doctor keeps getting postponed.

We are informed by the medical facility that she has no insurance. Our options are (1) delay the appointment {her medication, necessary to prevent cancer, has already been delayed since May}, (2) lie to the Medicaid administrators about whether she has insurance so she can get on Medicaid, or (3) pay $650 - the rate charged to people who are self-pay (the negotiated insurance rate is around $250. Never let anyone tell you that self-pay is cheaper.)

It took us a couple of hours - but we did get the national HR person on the phone to confirm to the medical facility that she has insurance.

I don't need any more gut blows. It's hard enough knowing I have a daughter who will need a liver transplant and is at risk for a half dozen cancers, some of which are very aggressive. I agonized for 19 years over how she would obtain medical once she aged off my plan - from age 4 to 23, when the ACA fully kicked in. Now after 3 years (still with some agonizing due to court battles that threatened it), we're back wondering where the $60,000/year is going to come from when they yank the ACA.

[H2O Man]

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