$10,000....

[garybeck]

My family currently gets health insurance through my wife's job. They recently raised the monthly premiums and the deductable amount, so we decided it would be a good time to check in with my employer and compare "deals."

I'm flabbergasted at the response I got.

First, I would have to change my status from hourly to salary. Nothing would change in my job, and I've been working 40 hours per week, and getting paid vacation for the last 5 years. Just a "technicality" of status change so the health insurance would be available to me.. oh and by the way, changing to salaried status would mean a ~$3,500 pay CUT per year... I asked, is there anything else that I get for being salaried, besides the pay cut and the availability of health insurance? "Nope."

So then we started looking at the health insurance premiums.... They add up to over $6,500 per year! Plus there are significant deductables for each member of the family....

So if I want to get health insurance "benefits" from my employer, it would cost me $10,000 per year, BEFORE I even pay a penny of deductable!

WTF???? I remember, not long ago when I first entered the work force in the early 90s. Getting health insurance from your employer really meant that they paid for it... not that they just give you an offering to buy something. My monthly premiums were like $50 if it was just me and $100 if it was for the family.

I believe the slow and continuous increase in monthly premiums is just another way that they (employers and health insurance companies) are milking us for every penny they can, just slow enough so that we don't realize it. But looking back now 15 or 20 years, we have to say What the Fuck did they do to us? They're making more money, we're making less, and the cost of living is going UP. WTF?

$10,000 !?!?!!?!?!

[lonestarnot]

1. Woohoo.

Not!

[givemebackmycountry]

2. That's fucked up. I swear these bastards see the writing on the wall.

They are going to nickle and dime us to death as they clean up what's left of the dollars and cents of the working class.

[Skittles]

3. but....but......but.....they have to take PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS!!!

that's what the unbelievably stupid and naive call a GOOD TRADE :thumbsdown:

[limpyhobbler]

4. I wish we all just had health insurance.

I wish we all just had health insurance.

Stories like what you just described make me more angry than anything.

Just like you said, it just keeps getting a little bit harder every year. One day we might turn around and find everything is gone.

Just my opinion, but I hope we can get away from employer-based health insurance all together. It's not right that if somebody loses a job, they lose their health insurance too, just when they would need it the most, because they have just lost their income. There is COBRA, but most can't afford it. Everybody should be able to buy Medicare for health insurance if they want to.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Yawn. We DID health care reform. It's already off the to-do list and stamped "Mission Accomplished"

Thank President Obama and move along.

[Newest Reality]

6. The gameplan seems to be to

extract every last drop of blood from the host as quickly as possible.

There is money to be made all the way down to the very rubble left from the collapse. The vultures are already flying high above and looking for bones with some meat left on them to pick. There are plenty of business models and examples around now.

For those expecting "recovery" or any stability or security beyond the illusory, fairy tale kind, (and who are not in the 1% club) you may want to learn to adapt and cope with the reality of what's going on, while you still have something.

[kestrel91316]

7. Health "insurance" is a joke. I don't want health "insurance", which is just

a form of gambling where the house always wins, as usual. I want HEALTH CARE, for which I am willing to pay TAXES.

If they cut the bloodsucking middlemen (insurance companies)out, the whole proposition becomes MUCH cheaper.

SINGLE. PAYER. RIGHT. EFFING. NOW.

[Uben]

8. GEt cancer and it jumps to $25K/yr premiums

That's what I pay even if I don't get sick. You wanna talk suck? That sucks!

[garybeck]

9. that does suck.

I can hear the sucking sound right now... as they suck the money from our wallets.

[TexasTowelie]

10. If you convert from hourly to salary,

they will probably declare that you are FLSA exempt which means that your employer can turn you into a slave. Expect to spend 70-80 hours a week at work with no overtime compensation.

[Fumesucker]

15. That was my first thought too...

Oh, by the way, your hours just doubled while you make $3.5K less..

[era veteran]

11. Just why did any Congressperson decide to exempt

this predator 'industry' from anti trust regulation?

[woo me with science]

13. Because the entire "reform" was a planned scam from the beginning.

Why would they do that? It would defeat the whole purpose.

They managed to mandate that EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN CITIZEN purchase an outrageously overpriced corporate product. Think about that. What a coup.

And they managed to do it by pitting us against each other to get us to accept what neither side would have tolerated had it been proposed this way at the outset.

The corporate mandate was the goal all along. That was the gift to the corporate insurance companies.

[era veteran]

14. Not what I am talking of, This in place before bogus HCR.

Insurance — in fact, all kinds of insurance, not just health coverage — is exempt from federal antitrust laws, though these protections are more limited than they are for baseball teams. A 1945 law exempts from federal antitrust law the "business of insurance" as long as it is "regulated by state law." However, in some contexts — such as if the conduct involves an agreement to "boycott, coerce or intimidate" — federal antitrust law does apply.

The McCarran-Ferguson Act, passed in 1945, effectively grants all insurers an exemption from federal antitrust or consumer protection enforcement.

I wonder why they left out the NO PRICE FIXING part?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/13/americans-united-change/liberal-group-says-health-care-baseball-are-only-i/

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/10/unlocking_competition.html

[Scuba]

12. Medicare for All. It's the only solution. n/t

[ehrnst]

16. My stepdad has a $10,000 catastrophic plan until he gets medicare.

He calls it "insurance to keep the house" because that's what he and my mom estimated they could hemmorage and still keep the house.