Update: Bumping this thread to the top again. Thanks to everyone for so many thoughtful answers.
Update 2: Metafilter has linked to this discussion and has added some interesting insights and commentary.
Update 3: Posting it at the top for the weekend.
Where do you get your health insurance from? And if your answer is “through work,” where did you get your health insurance if you have ever been laid off or out of work for a significant amount of time?
In 2002 I was laid off and I picked up COBRA (allows you to keep your insurance from your former employer for a limited time, but at your expense and providing your old company still exists) at a cost of about $400 a month. Hell, $400 a month isn’t an extra bill you want when you are drawing a regular paycheck, nevermind when you’re on unemployment benefits which is just a bit more than half of what you were making (and don’t forget taxes). And $400 is cheap according to other stories I’ve heard from recently laid off friends. One relative of mine is paying well over $700 a month for health insurance while her unemployment quickly dries up.
What are your insurance stories Cynics?
Comments
119 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.Oh, I read the Times article, before you posted it, even. Hysterectomy=bad. Hysterectomy rates in the US are criminally high. Blah, blah, blah. I did rather a lot of reading during the approximately two-week period between ultrasound and ob-gyn visit.
Going in to the ob-gyn visit, I was aware that there was a groundswell of “Woodsman-spare-that-uterus” sentiment taking hold in this country. And, in point of fact, despite my pro-hysterectomy views, my doc pitched me the myomectomy (cut the lumps out, keep the uterus) option on the grounds that my thirty-five year old self would want babies “later”. (No, it would not. It does not. It will not ever.)
I’m not sure why your ob-gyn didn’t offer you that option, but mine did. I didn’t mention the myomectomy option because I was not particularly interested in it as a treatment. However, since you’ve raised the question — yes. My doc offered that to me as an option.
My absolutely deplorable New Zealand socialized medicine works like this:
Doctor’s/specialist/office room visits: charge
Pharmaceuticals: charge
Dentistry: charge
Glasses: charge
Emergency/Acute health care at hospital: Free
Ambulance: Free
Surgery: Free
Accidents: Free
Birth: Free (but do pay for doctors, medication, extraneous outside of the actual birth procedure)
We have insurance in NZ, but it’s all optional – you use it if you want a) choice of health care provider b) private care c) bumped to the front of the line.
The problems with our system are waiting times and underpaid/underappreciated doctors/nursing staff. HOWEVER, when it comes to red tape and medical mishap, I’d say our system is way less faulty. With no insurance, I can walk in off the street and be seen immediatly, even if it means a little waiting time.
Personally, I am in good health, I only have to pay for optometry, occasional dentistry, and non-life saving pharmeceutical (eg: birth control and anti-histamines). I have never required acute care, but in the times my partner has (emergency appendectomy, surgery to remove cyst), it has all been free.
In times of broken bones, sprains, sports/work injuries etc it has been covered by “Accident Compensation Corporation” – our countries state run entity which covers just what its name suggests.
I’ll take wait times over threat of complete financial ruination any day thanks.
Oh, forgot to mention another draw back of our system is that sometimes you can get bumped from state facilities before you’re fully recovered (eg: a day after giving birth, too early after having surgery) because of a lack of beds/staff. However, there is always the ability to return if acutely affected, and we have good in-home visiting facilities for mid-wives (Plunkett) and travelling nurses (Nurse Maude).
canuck reminded me that although the system here is Canada is flawed, it does work. I’ve had many instances in which doctors (who are only paid to work until 5 pm or who just received test results late on a Sunday night, for example) personally make the effort to call their patient or meet with them if their situation is urgent.
My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and within THREE WEEKS she had had a mastectomy. She would probably be dead now if it weren’t for the fact that the system works. And considering her terrible cancer genes (66% of the girls in every generation of her family get cancer), either my sister or myself will get it someday. If it weren’t for the regular screenings, mammograms and even ultrasound I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night (particularly since I have a benign lump in my breast the size of an egg. I had to wait a couple of weeks for the diagnosis… I can only imagine what it would be like to be waiting, knowing you could be about to die because of that wait).
Socialized medicine may be scary in some ways, but there is nothing scarier than the thought of someone being refused life-saving/improving treatment because of MONEY. That’s simply barbaric.
And if you’re worried it will make you lose control over your own health care… don’t worry. You don’t have any choice now anyway, so what is there to lose?
I was talking to an American neurosurgeon last week, and he was explaining whe he didn’t ever want to work in Europe. The main issue was money, of course, though he seemed shy of purtting it quite like that. Some of his points about how doctors are regarded were interesting, though – he claimed that doctors in nationalized healthcare systems tend to feel like civil servants instead of professionals, for example (possibly highlighting failures of management).
But then he took my breath away by complaining that a big part of the problem is that in countries with socialized med ‘people feel they have a right to health care’. The clearly unquestioned assumption that health care is not and should not be a basic right left me staggered.
I’m a Canadian and won’t speak of my coverage because it would feel like I was rubbing it in your faces. I’m sitting here at work, shocked and close to tears for all of you.
I can’t imagine living in such abject fear on a daily basis.
@ which_chick
You were so lucky – you had a rare and good doctor who gave you those choices and treated you with respect. You made the choice your were happy with and works for you – you GOT that choice which many women do not.
And it is NOT “Woodsman-spare-that-uterus†sentiment – It is medically SOUND to leave a uterus in a woman’s body – it regulates much of our health especially when we are younger! Not to mention the muscular attachments blah blah blah. (Remember I was only 29 or 30) It’s like telling someone “you have a polyp in your colon we’re going to hack the whole thing out” So PLEASE do not perpetuate the idea that crazy hippies are out to save the uterus and that it is an unnecessary accessory! (snarky and I apologize, but I am sensitive about it – the humiliation of how I was treated still stings)
Okay that was WAY off topic, but the point again is, even with “insurance” I could not get the treatment I desperately needed, and was not even informed of the option of myomectomy because the doctors would not get paid, and DID NOT get paid when I finally got the surgery I needed. The doctor charged a total of $3000 including general anesthesia for both surgeries and only got paid $600. I thought $3000 was cheap! (Especially in New Jersey!) and I had paid far more than that into my insurance policy – so where did all my money go? It did not go toward my treatment I’ll tell you that much!
The thing that is the horror that we live with in the U.S. is that unless you have a stable corporate or Union job with a company that pays for the good stuff, or you are completely poor and get Medicare and Medicaid which is a horror story all in it’s own, you are screwed. That leaves a very large number of people out in the cold. My husband and I make a better living income-wise than my father did, but we can’t afford to buy our own insurance. We live in fear of accidents and illnesses like people did back in the 1800’s. I am terrified of getting pregnant now – because we don’t have insurance OR the $10,000 to $15,000 that it costs to have a baby!!! Is this a great country where a woman has to live in FEAR of getting pregnant!?!
That is KILLING me!
P.S.
There is no PERFECT system – but any system where everyone can get the medical care they need, that is not dictated by anyone but the doctor and is not financially ruinous to the patient or doctor is a far better system than we have here whether it carries the label “Socialized” or not.
Update to my post at #62….
My husband took a nasty tumble off his bike today when he hit a piece of wood (has logged something like 2700 kms so far this summer riding back and forth to work) and hit the pavement shoulder first. I got a call at home, picked him up and took him to the nearest hospital, where he was seen immediately after the paperwork (5 mins) was done. Was examined by a doc, x-rayed, diagnosed with a really nasty clavicle fracture (bad enough that with any other bone his body, he’d be having orthopedic surgery but collarbones just get rest unless they are compound apparently), got outfitted with a sling,etc and we were out of there within 1.5 hours. All of which was covered by provincial insurance. Where was the long wait for service that naysayers claim socialised medicine results in?
I get my health care insurance from the government. It doesn’t cost me anything. There’s no deductible, there’s no upper limit to the coverage, and I’ll never be dropped for a ‘pre-existing condition’ or because of where I live. I see a doctor whenever I need to, and I can go to a walk-in clinic if it’s more convenient. I live in Canada.
I don’t have health insurance. I have a Master’s degree and am working a part time job until I go back to school for my PhD in the fall, when I will be required to buy the school insurance (and I will probably not be able to afford it without bailouts from loved ones). I get free birth control and annual “lady” exams from Planned Parenthood because I qualify as “low-income.” I just have to make sure I don’t get hit by a bus. I have a few medical issues I need to see a doctor about as soon as I have coverage again, and I could also use a pair of glasses that doesn’t fall apart once a week. But hey, at least I’m not pregnant!
i don’t have it for last 3 years .i just got it from current employee i know a lot of people the don t have it at all.because if you work in fast food making 300/400$ how you will got it .if you are sure about your health than you can got cellphone instead of inssurance.in a lot of countiries the got from the government and its good ;like europe middle east ….here we have it detailed dent vision health .and lot of plans .companies they take advantage of poor citezens .the reach peoples the don’t care because the are in Washington the stand against national health care .if they don’t need it they can keep their s . but let the rest who need help to have it other ways the selfishness in the health and politics will not help.love America
My husband is self-employed in the auto industry and I’m not working currently. We have private insurance and pay $800/mos + 30% copay. We are expecting a 15% increase soon. BCBS is our only option, here in Michigan, due to pre-existing conditions.
Our 19 son died last year due to complications following surgery. Our portion of the bill was $30K for the surgery and 2 days of hospitalization. That’s WITH insurance! An amazing social worker at the hospital found out that he was eligible for assistance from a government fund which picked up whatever our insurance wouldn’t cover. I don’t know how we could have paid the bills otherwise.
If I could find a job in Canada, I’d move there in a heartbeat!
1. Get insurance through my job (with some fanagaling to get around a pre-existing)!
2. Got insurance through my school.
3. In the in between times lived in fear that I would become ill or get hurt, which probably decreased my immune function because of the stress.
@darmon: yes, many young healthy people can get insurance at an affordable price because that is who insurance co. want to insure!! However, what percentage of the population does that really make up??
Fortunately, I am a veteran, so I got free health care from the VA when I was laid off. No insurance company would give me health insurance due to my past medical history. BTW, I am healthy.
Fed employee so I get it through Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Not expensive but not cheap either for myself+spouse. I pay the same rate/deductible as someone with kids.
When I got out of the military I had nothing, always had VA to fall back on for myself but my spouse had nothing either. Started a job where we had to wait 3 months for coverage, she got acute colitis 3 weeks before my insurance kicked in. ER and 2 nights in the hospital later we were an extra $9k in debt. Just about had my car paid off and had to refinance it to pay the bills.
Also had to go on a TB prophylaxis prior to being hired at that job due to a misread TB test and crappy walk-in clinic X-ray that couldn’t tell the emphysema on my lung from TB. $100 a month in prescriptions for 6 months.
I do not take my health insurance for granted now.
I moved to korea 10 years ago. This is one of the most capitalist societies in the world. since then, I pay about 70 dollars a month, and my employer 70. Anytime I go to the doctor, be it for a common cold, an eye infection, or a broken ankle, I pay about 4 dollars.
Government run, single-payer insurance.
yeah, socialism is a bitch, right?
I lost my job two years ago,I picked up cobra at around a thousand a month for my family.[cobra coverage can be up to 103% of cost so that was the cost]I had to pay this for eight months until I finally got a job that covered us again.I average 50k per year and this cost strained our budget to the limit.My daughter broke her wrist the deductables and copays came to 3 thousand dollars.That was 11k for eight months of coverage.Add to this our prescriptions andother copays and my medical coverage was nearly 13k for eight months.Thank God that I stayed healthy and was able to return to work with medical.Here is the scary part,If I had cancer or some other long term condition.my choices would have been get treatment and bankrupt my family or just die.That is the reality of the situation.every senator or congressman that wants to stick with the status quo is jeapordizing your families future.Think about that when elections come up
I’m australian, if i want to go to the doctor i go and its free or a small fee, maybe $40, but whatever is needed is done, i’ve never been without a job and dont struggle to find one when i need one. I hear people from USA saying how great their country is, well i for one would never go there, for a place that is the richest in the world and cant even give its citizens decent health, dosnt seem like such a great place to me