My first journal post -- many thanks to LWolf for an excellent post & allowing

[tpsbmam]

me to post it to my new journal. I hope more will add to it. As I said in my post that sank like a stone, I'd like to add as many as possible to both post here and send to Washington/select media. I'm also going to cull through old posts here to see what I can find to post and send. All, of course, only with your express permission.

Thank you, LWolf!

My health insurance changes for the coming year:

This week the bad news arrived. We were warned that costs were rising by 15-26%. Now we see the reality.

This is for employer-provided health care. We pay whatever the insurance costs over our negotiated cap.

First I got a letter explaining that there will now be "tiers" of copayments: the "value" tier is the lowest copay. Then comes the "additional cost" tier, which applies to endoscopies, spine surgery, knee or hip replacement, and arthroscopies; an additional $500 copay applies. MRIs, CT scans, and PET scans will now require an additional $100 copay. There are lower copays for office visits to primary care providers, higher for specialists.

Next I got a list of the plans available to me this year. I can choose between 4 plans, just like always. No fees were attached to this list. My current plan was not on the list.

Finally, I got an email from the district letting me know that I could look at rates on the district's HR pages.

I have to choose a new plan, since the current plan is no longer offered. So I looked at the plan that cost about the same as the one I've got now. Yes, I can have insurance without paying more.

That plan doubles my deductible, doubles my maximum out-of-pocket costs, and doubles my copay percentages. Which are already more than I can afford.

So I looked at the next cheapest plan. That one's premium is not 15-26% more. It is EIGHT TIMES what I'm paying for a premium now. And there is not one service provided that I'm not paying out more copays and deductibles in addition to that premium.

Finally, there is a section in the paperwork entitled "Health Care Reform." It informs me that "health care reform" passed in March requires 2 changes in our plans this year:

1. Extended coverage of dependents through age 25, of which I have none. I would have appreciated this when I did, though.

2. The lifetime maximum benefit has been removed. Not that this matters. If I didn't use my insurance because I couldn't afford the copays and deductibles this year, I'm not likely to use the insurance next year, either.

Since I can't find enough in the budget to pay EIGHT TIMES the cost of the premium for no care, I'll probably go with the plan that doubles the cost of everything except the premium. Since I can't afford the care regardless, I might as well not pay more for the insurance.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...