If someone is happy with their health insurance, they haven't had a major illness or asked employer

[yurbud]

Poll question: If someone is happy with their health insurance, they haven't had a major illness or asked employer

how he likes the costs.

NOTE: does NOT include government provide health insurance like Medicare, VA, etc.



Cross-posted at Reddit to make righty mad:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/9rcz4/if_someone_is_happy_with_their_health_insurance/

[Blue_Tires]

1. or they're already filthy rich....

[paulsby]

2. disagree

fwiw, i am for universal healthcare.

but...

my insurance is phenomenal, i am CURRENTLY on disability, after a major surgery (going back to work mid december) and my insurance has covered everything 100% , except for drugs which have a small copay.

i can't ask my "employer" so to speak, because my employers are the taxpayers.

they pay a lot for my plan, but it is phenomenal and i am satisfied with it.. heck, i love it

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. Why wouldn't you love it? Great taxpayer provided coverage

What we all want. What other countries have.

[paulsby]

7. true

fwiw, the plan is available to private industry too. but you are correct. it is, in my case, a private plan, funded by the taxpayers.

over 30k of charges in last 2 months, and they have covered 100%.

[Brickbat]

3. For many years, we were under an excellent plan. We knew exactly how much it cost because Mr. B was

in the carpenters union, which administered its own plan. Coverage, cost and eligibility were all negotiated and voted on by the membership. Employers had nothing to do with it. The coverage was outstanding.

We are now under a different union and a different plan which is quite good but we haven't been on it long enough to be totally familiar with it.

So, I voted no.

[yurbud]

6. I hadn't thought of that! The union has very different priorities than employers though

It's primary goal is to look after the welfare of its members, not make a profit at their expense.

[Brickbat]

8. Well, yeah.

But you asked about coverage, and mine didn't fit under the exception, so I answered. :)

[yurbud]

9. that would be other then

[EFerrari]

5. Yep. Most people who think their insurance is good have never had to use it

for a major illness. My ex went through that. What an ugly wake up that was for us.

[yurbud]

10. what happened?

[EFerrari]

17. It was a psych problem and Blue Cross wouldn't cover it.

A five year nightmare that changed our lives forever. Fuck you, Blue Cross.

And the thing is, his parents and I had thought he was safely covered and we maintained his policy for years on that belief. We were as wrong as possible. A rocket science, an accountant for the feds and a doctoral candidate at Cal, WRONG-O.

[yurbud]

25. how much did it cost you?

[EFerrari]

34. I can't even begin to run it down. Two hospitalizations wiped me out.

It had to have been at least $200K for those after my mother in law wrestled them to the ground for us. Iirc, they started out asking about $110k per hospitalization.

And that's just for a week or so per hospitalization. Not long enough to stabilize him which would have taken about two weeks.

[RKP5637]

11. Often people don't know 'till they use it - some are happy, some are saddened at

what's not covered. Most people (I think) don't wade through all the details 'till something happens, then it's too late.

I had a $6K deductible. I put off a colonoscopy because it was expensive with the deductible. I just barely missed getting colon cancer. I went 2 years past my 5 year due date. I had to have my appendix removed and cecum because of an inaccessible pre-cancerous polyp. I had a very good surgeon. I was right on the edge of cancer. There are a lot of people like me, postponing preventive medicine because it is so damn expensive the way insurance is today.

[yurbud]

26. in other words, don't know until its too late

[RKP5637]

29. Yep, it's really a bad system, too expensive, many die and are never heard from. I was lucky.

[w8liftinglady]

12. well,I've had $250K in med bills,and paid $3000 out of pocket.

and am trying like hell to get every test possible done before December.I'd be dead if I didn't have insurance

[Xithras]

13. Eh, no.

Some of you might remember that my youngest son was born with a tumor on his head five years ago, and the full cost of treating him (including reconstrutive surguries to reduce scarring on his little head) ended up running nearly $250,000. We added it up once, and the full course of treatment ended up costing us about $1200...and that includes copays for the surgeries and the prescriptions. There was never an objection by Anthem to any of it.

Of course, my employer have agreed on the costs. We have one of those "Cadillac" plans that covers everything, but is very pricey. If I remember correctly, it averages out to about $25,000 per employee annually. Because I'm still only an adjunct, I have to pay about $900 a month for the coverage for my family of five.

[lukasahero]

14. We had an excellent plan when my husband went through heart attack and bypass surgery

and since we were on COBRA at the time, I know exactly how much it cost. To be honest, I'd have done anything to keep that plan but time on COBRA is limited. Even at $1100/month, it was worth every penny knowing what the hospital charges were. (In 3 months time, he racked up about $100,000 in surgery costs alone.)

[flaminbats]

15. I agree..

too many Americans have to walk this tightrope for a living, but if I had to choose between a safetynet without holes and one with house-sized holes..I think the choice is obvious.

unfortunately until something passes, we're stuck walking the tightrope with swiss cheese style health insurance or nothing at all. :yoiks:

[seabeyond]

16. i dont know. it is a good question to ask. hubby says happy with insurance. i say, what if....

we have serious illness, i dont know if i am comfortable they will take care of us.

we had this conversation just the other day. he says, will see when/if it happens.

which is why question is good. i need to hear from people who were happy with insurance and then used it and are still happy with it.

i dont know

i think it is a good point though, and one i am sharing with hubby tonight.

as far as employer satisfied, well, that is another story. when we owned business and felt responsible purchasing healthcare for employee, it was outrageous. one of the reasons hubby so comfortable selling business. no, not happy from perspective as employer

[TheKentuckian]

18. Are we saying that there has been insufficient pain to make substantives changes?

Because knowing that people haven't had to really test their coverage doesn't change them being happy with it now. Its starting to sound like we tried to make a move too soon, from a public outcry perspective.

It would seem like the forfeit of pay for a decade would have some impact as well as human decency and the horror stories but it looks like the bottom line is too many people are still able to get something to have the pain spread far and wide enough to create a real impetus for change.

People are fucking cowardly and stupid.

[rucky]

19. Or they have no idea where their money's going, and why.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

20. Disagree. My Insurance Was A God Send When Going Through My Wife's Cancer Battle.

They were phenomenal and amazingly helpful. United Healthcare.

So yeah; we had to use it. And when it came time for the need, UHC came through in huge ways.

[KittyWampus]

21. This has already been proven false by DUers who explained why they were happy with their insurance.

And the fact you are trying to construct this idea even though it's been proven false is disturbing.

The Medical Insurance industry needs heavy regulation and reform and providing health care for all needs to happen. But let's be honest.

[hunter]

36. My wife ran out her COBRA.

Neither one of us can buy private insurance. We have a very expensive high deductible plan through her work.

MOST ANYONE, except veterans and a few other groups could find themselves in exactly the same situation we did.

In any civilized nation my wife and I wouldn't have been put through the financial grinder, our lives wouldn't have been nearly so stressful, and we might be spending money on things like vacations and new cars rather than pharmaceuticals and medical expenses.

The USA is not a civilized nation and it has been getting less civilized. One day we'll wake up and realize we are the last kleptocracy on the American Continent, a police state where most people live in poverty or near the edge of poverty, all controlled and owned by a tiny minority of extremely and unconscionably wealthy people.

If we don't kill the U.S. health care "industry" now it will kill the last of the U.S.A. middle class and we will become the next crumbling empire with a declining standard of living... if we are not there already.

Single Payer Now!

[subterranean]

22. Even if you're happy with your insurance now, the fact remains...

if you lose your job, you lose that insurance coverage (I know there's COBRA, but you probably won't be so happy when you find out how much it costs you).

[RKP5637]

23. Exactly!!!

[ellenfl]

24. i don't understand the question. or, more correctly, i don't SEE a question. eom

[gleaner]

27. Agree

Not only are the costs horrendous, but if you try to use it the insurance company flatly refuses to pay for many covered services and you have absolutely no recourse except an appeal to the company itself. Guess how that goes.

[csziggy]

28. Even if your coverage was good in the past, it may not be as good now

Even if you kept the same options on your policy.

We have had Blue Cross/Blue Shield for years through my husband's employer - it was BC/BS of California and changed to Anthem BC/BS. To keep the monthly payment reasonable, we've maintained the selection of a $2000 deductible. That was not a problem in 2007 when I had knee surgery - we anticipated the deductible expense and the out of pocket was a few hundred.

For my shoulder surgery, I thought it would be about the same - boy was I WRONG! The additional costs almost equaled the deductible. This really sucked money out of our pockets this year.

We had not changed our selections during the enrollment period, but Anthem simply does not cover as much as the old BC/BS of CA did. I guess I am lucky they have not actually denied any part of the treatment.

[Kansas Wyatt]

30. BINGO!

Each and every year, the Insurance Company is trimming the amount they pay to make more profit, while charging more and making the policy holder pay more in deductibles and out of pocket expenses.

People do not have the same insurance coverage they had 10 years ago, 5 years ago, or even 2 years ago.

For anyone who thinks there is not something horribly wrong and do not have a problem with their insurance coverage...
Go back to your insurance coverage 10 years ago and compare it to your insurance coverage today. Compare how much you pay, which includes raises denied to cover the cost, what your deductibles are, how much your co-pays are, what is and what isn't covered, etc. etc.
There is no way you can conclude that it is fair and reasonable.

[csziggy]

32. What I found appalling is that I had a more involved shoulder surgery 15 years ago

With no insurance, paid out of pocket. Same surgeon, same outpatient facility, same anesthesiologist, same physical therapy group. My total out of pocket with no insurance at all was just three times what I just paid out of my pocket for a less involved operation with one third the time on the table, fewer return visits to the surgeon, fewer physical therapy sessions.

If this operation had been out of pocket for what they billed the insurance company I probably would have opted to live with the pain - this shoulder was functional, just painful. I had no choice with the 1994 operation, my shoulder was basically destroyed and I could not lift the arm. Everything involved was a little over $12,000 with an MRI. This time I opted out of the MRI, but the amount billed was probably close to $60,000 for much less reconstruction. I shouldn't feel so bad about the roughly $4,000 I had to pay, but it was higher than I expected.

2007, I had knee surgery with the same policy and the out of pocket was about $500 above the $2000 deductible. I was expecting a little more than that, but not four times that much!

[Sirveri]

31. VA for the win, everything is free for me!

Thank you military for really horribly screwing me up and completly destroying my self esteem!

[TexasObserver]

33. AGREE

[mdmc]

35. --