Well, my husband just found out our options for health insurance coverage have changed.

[ejpoeta]

All but three options are gone. And what is left have a nice deductible before they ever pay a dime. Bob mentioned UHC (united healthcare) great!! but please, we don't want to lose our 'choices' do we!! I mean, even if you have decent coverage there are no guarantees tomrrow. We currently have CIGNA which isn't the greatest, but will no longer be available after this year. And Independent health which at least covered a lot of things will be gone as well. But by all means, we don't need reform. ANd the idea of a mandate right now scares the crap out of me. Mandated into a policy that won't even begin to pay out anything until we shell out $2500!! I hope to hell we qualify for family health plus or we are screwed!

People are kidding themselves if they think that we can keep our 'good health insurance'. But I can guarantee that the insurance companies are going to keep jacking up the rates and employers are going to have to keep paring down options to no good ones. And the mental health coverage is atrocious!! I am teetering right now... haven't had meds for many months and just had a baby a month ago. I can't afford to go to my conselor because of my cost. I went today after calling to ask if I could pay the $25 next time bob gets paid because i NEEDED to go. I know I am slipping and don't want to go down that road. But what can you do when you are broke and still can't afford to get the help you need. I owe $250 to the hospital towards my daughter's birth. Still have to get my youngest signed up for insurance and got a bill from a checkup for $80!! I can assure you that the financial aspects of this crap is not helping my depression right now. But that's ok. we need to take our time. and lets let the insurance companies run everything because they are doing such a great job right now.

OK> i am done now.

[mdmc]

1. Mine too.. Going up Nov.1

beat incorporated.

[ejpoeta]

2. but at least we can get health savings accounts. the company will chip in

$1000 towards the HSA... which apparently will at least roll over. I don't like this at all. Bob was going to see if we qualify for family health plus. at least we can put the kids on child health plus. oh, and i guess life insurance is gone now.

[Papagoose]

3. My share of the premiums go up on Jan. 1

but we've already been told no bonuses this year and no raises for next year. That's a pay cut by my reasoning, but they keep telling us to not complain and be grateful for what we get.

The thing is - I am grateful - but I am not an ingrate for not being happy with this.

[ejpoeta]

4. yeah, no bonuses and no raises here either. but they aren't telling anyone

until after the union vote is over. you would think folks would have figured it out by now since they pulled that bs last year and waited til after the vote to tell them no bonus and no raise. and it isn't about the money so much as it is about watching the ceo get millions in bonus while you get the shaft.

[ginnyinWI]

5. we are losing choices too, first of the year.

No more option to belong to an HMO. Everybody goes on one of three plans with payroll deductions and deductibles. If you add payroll to deductible they are all the same: about $4300 out of pocket before insurance kicks in. Big payroll deduction=smaller deductible, or the reverse. We are going to opt for the smaller payroll deduction and hope we don't spend all the deductible. That's the only way to pay less than $4300 per year.

This includes prescriptions--no more co-pays--we have to pay the full amount until the deductible is met! I am on three of them.

It's not the employer's fault, it's the insurance industry, trying to squeeze out more profits for themselves.

Better than no insurance but this is NO choice. You work for this company and this is your insurance. period.

[Okie4Obama]

6. I had post partum depression for over a year because no health insurance == no help.

I hope you get some kind of relief before your depression kicks into overdrive.

[ejpoeta]

9. i just don't want to go back 'there'..... i have more incentive to fight it,

but the trouble is that you have a logical side and then the darkness... and once the logical side gets very quiet and small, then you do stupid things like ride your bike four hours to your brothers house and don't tell anyone where you are going and do self destructive things. i have my notebook from back then which scares the crap out of me. Granted, i was younger then.... early 20s before i met my husband. but i still don't want to go back to that horrible place. and this insurance crap isn't helping any. at least they let me go to see my counselor without having the money to pay right away.... that is different from before. no money, no counseling was their policy back then.

[Duke Newcombe]

7. B, b, but...the FREE MARKET supplies CHOICE, doesn't it?

In your case you still have choice...a bad, nearly worthless choice, but a choice!!! :eyes:

Stupid flippin' birthers, deathers, tenthers, so-called "conservatives", and their damned "Health" Insurance overlords.

[ejpoeta]

10. gee, will my brother bitch about the changes??? he is against healthcare reform... against anything

the liberals do..... he won't vote for a union for work either because they support obama. yep. that's right. he's willing to keep us all under the thumb of corporate overlords because he'd rather have no bonus, no raise, no anything than to be part of an organization that supports dems. i swear i could strangle him!! he LOVES limbaugh and beck. and he refuses to listen to anything. btw... he and my husband work for the same company.

[SheilaT]

8. As far back as I can recall,

whenever I've heard the claim that "socialized" medicine will take away our choices I've always wondered what kind of alternate reality the speaker lives in.

If it is even distantly possible, see if you can start a separate account for all of the out of pocket and copays that you will be liable for. I realize that I know nothing about your personal financial situation, and that such an account may simply not be possible.

[ejpoeta]

11. bob was looking and they will have HSAs with an employer input of $1000.

the HSA rolls over from looking it up.