I feel sick looking at the cost of healthcare for my family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What free BC? I just had a baby and my generic BC is $38/month. I have UHC PPO. The BC I was on before was brand name and less money.

They don't have to cover every single brand. If you call United, they will tell you which brands are free.

You might have a grandfathered plan, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What free BC? I just had a baby and my generic BC is $38/month. I have UHC PPO. The BC I was on before was brand name and less money. [/quote

My para guard IUD was 100% free, so was dr visit to have it put in. I have UHC PPO.

[Anonymous]

"Big Pharma OWNS Congress. Until we have single payer insurance, we will never get out from under them."

Yup. Because they have oodles of money and share it on both sides.

[Anonymous]

Look, I know what my health care costs per year are: it costs me 14K / year (between insurance and copays to stay alive). 4 years ago, with the same medical conditions, my company insurance and all, it would have cost me about 4K/year. But, 4 years ago, there was a lifetime cap of 1 million.

Now, I have cancer. In the last three years, insurance has paid out about 700K for medical care.

Before ACA, I would know that one more relapse would put me over the top, and I would just die.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, I know what my health care costs per year are: it costs me 14K / year (between insurance and copays to stay alive). 4 years ago, with the same medical conditions, my company insurance and all, it would have cost me about 4K/year. But, 4 years ago, there was a lifetime cap of 1 million.

Now, I have cancer. In the last three years, insurance has paid out about 700K for medical care.

Before ACA, I would know that one more relapse would put me over the top, and I would just die.

I'm so sorry PP. I hope you stay in remission. I've posted on here before that I knew a woman who died of cancer because she had reached her lifetime max, and the insurance company stopped paying for her treatment. She died penniless. Thank goodness for part of the ACA that did away with it. And for us, doing away with the pre-existing conditions for private insurance was also a god-send for my DH and I who wanted to be self employed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, I know what my health care costs per year are: it costs me 14K / year (between insurance and copays to stay alive). 4 years ago, with the same medical conditions, my company insurance and all, it would have cost me about 4K/year. But, 4 years ago, there was a lifetime cap of 1 million.

Now, I have cancer. In the last three years, insurance has paid out about 700K for medical care.

Before ACA, I would know that one more relapse would put me over the top, and I would just die.

I'm so sorry PP. I hope you stay in remission. I've posted on here before that I knew a woman who died of cancer because she had reached her lifetime max, and the insurance company stopped paying for her treatment. She died penniless. Thank goodness for part of the ACA that did away with it. And for us, doing away with the pre-existing conditions for private insurance was also a god-send for my DH and I who wanted to be self employed.

I'm the OP, and this is just wrong and breaks my heart. Why do we accept this system? Other countries manage to treat their populace without going broke. Look at Australia, for example - they have a public system and a private system as well. For a family of 5, an Australian friend pays $250/month for private health care. People should not be dying because they can't afford treatment, nor should people be filing for bankruptcy because they can't afford their medical bills. When are we going to do something about this and demand changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, I know what my health care costs per year are: it costs me 14K / year (between insurance and copays to stay alive). 4 years ago, with the same medical conditions, my company insurance and all, it would have cost me about 4K/year. But, 4 years ago, there was a lifetime cap of 1 million.

Now, I have cancer. In the last three years, insurance has paid out about 700K for medical care.

Before ACA, I would know that one more relapse would put me over the top, and I would just die.

PP, I also have cancer, so I totally understand what you are talking about. I was diagnosed when my youngest was two (and I quit my job to stay home while kids were young, hoping to return to work in a couple of years), so I'm claimed as a dependent on my husband's insurance. Before ACA, if something happened to my husband, I'd just screwed completely, since you couldn't get ANY insurance for ANY amount of money due to preexisting conditions. Not to mention the lifetime cap.

Now, four years post-diagnosis, I'm still alive (not sure if it's due to "excellent care" I received or just pure luck), but not done with cancer as it keeps coming back. All we do is pay premiums, deductibles, co-insurances and copays. Our finances are completely ruined, we're in credit card debt up to our ears.

There are days I honestly wish I'd died during my first surgery, since that would have saved our family a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank Obama for that huge spike in price.

I bet most of the twits on here voted for him, yet have the lack of insight to complain about their healthcare costs!

Now I'll wait for the sycophants to defend our dear leader and blame the repubs for all our ills.

3...2...1..

I guarntee your previous plan was crappy and didn't cover the minimums required. At least preexisting is now covered and a whole slew of things.

I'm not the PP but in the 16 years that I've bought insurance through an employer, none of that was true. Never had preexisting condition exclusions, no lifetime maxs, same medical coverage. Free BC under the prescription plan is the only thing new.

+1

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, I know what my health care costs per year are: it costs me 14K / year (between insurance and copays to stay alive). 4 years ago, with the same medical conditions, my company insurance and all, it would have cost me about 4K/year. But, 4 years ago, there was a lifetime cap of 1 million.

Now, I have cancer. In the last three years, insurance has paid out about 700K for medical care.

Before ACA, I would know that one more relapse would put me over the top, and I would just die.

PP, I also have cancer, so I totally understand what you are talking about. I was diagnosed when my youngest was two (and I quit my job to stay home while kids were young, hoping to return to work in a couple of years), so I'm claimed as a dependent on my husband's insurance. Before ACA, if something happened to my husband, I'd just screwed completely, since you couldn't get ANY insurance for ANY amount of money due to preexisting conditions. Not to mention the lifetime cap.

Now, four years post-diagnosis, I'm still alive (not sure if it's due to "excellent care" I received or just pure luck), but not done with cancer as it keeps coming back. All we do is pay premiums, deductibles, co-insurances and copays. Our finances are completely ruined, we're in credit card debt up to our ears.

There are days I honestly wish I'd died during my first surgery, since that would have saved our family a lot of money.

PP ... I'm pretty sure your family would rather be in debt than lose you. I know that's how I feel about my DH, and I'm sure he feels the same about me.

[Anonymous]

I'm a little confused about the assertion that pre-ACA, people who hit lifetime insurance caps just died due to lack of treatment. The ACA didn't create Medicaid, that existed before. There were plenty of poor people receiving cancer treatment pre-ACA. And post-ACA, if you get cancer, you are still likely to eventually go bankrupt unless you are fairly wealthy or have a highly paid working spouse. Many ACA plans still include very high deductibles, and 20% co-insurance. Meaning if you have a catastrophic medical condition, you are still screwed financially most likely. Plus of course you have to keep paying the premiums - hard to do if you can't work due to cancer. There is evidence more people are insured under the ACA, but I have yet to see any data suggesting its saving lives, or that it has reduced cancer deaths or anything like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a little confused about the assertion that pre-ACA, people who hit lifetime insurance caps just died due to lack of treatment. The ACA didn't create Medicaid, that existed before. There were plenty of poor people receiving cancer treatment pre-ACA. And post-ACA, if you get cancer, you are still likely to eventually go bankrupt unless you are fairly wealthy or have a highly paid working spouse. Many ACA plans still include very high deductibles, and 20% co-insurance. Meaning if you have a catastrophic medical condition, you are still screwed financially most likely. Plus of course you have to keep paying the premiums - hard to do if you can't work due to cancer. There is evidence more people are insured under the ACA, but I have yet to see any data suggesting its saving lives, or that it has reduced cancer deaths or anything like that.

There are out-of-pocket maxes for coverage, meaning you will never have to pay more than X amount in network and x amount out of network in a year. So the bills can accumulate, but you won't be responsible for the amounts that exceed the out of pocket maxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a little confused about the assertion that pre-ACA, people who hit lifetime insurance caps just died due to lack of treatment. The ACA didn't create Medicaid, that existed before. There were plenty of poor people receiving cancer treatment pre-ACA. And post-ACA, if you get cancer, you are still likely to eventually go bankrupt unless you are fairly wealthy or have a highly paid working spouse. Many ACA plans still include very high deductibles, and 20% co-insurance. Meaning if you have a catastrophic medical condition, you are still screwed financially most likely. Plus of course you have to keep paying the premiums - hard to do if you can't work due to cancer. There is evidence more people are insured under the ACA, but I have yet to see any data suggesting its saving lives, or that it has reduced cancer deaths or anything like that.

From what I understand, in order to qualify for Medicare, you have to have been receiving disability for at least two years.

So, let's say you have cancer, but you still work, mainly because you need the health insurance (and btw, this happened to my friend, he had to keep working to keep his insurance to pay for his cancer treatments), but because the cancer treatments are so expensive, you reach your lifetime max. You are now hosed because the insurance will stop paying for your treatment, and you can't qualify for medicare.

So, what happens. You can't work because you are not getting treatment, so you lose your job, which means now you've lost your health insurance. What's next? You won't last two years to qualify for Medicare.

Thank you Obama for getting rid of lifetime max!

[Anonymous]

Our private HMO is about $15k/year, with about $10k paid by DH's employer. We have no deductible and copays are very low.

We feel extremely fortunate to have this coverage and DH is reluctant to seek other employment partly because of this.

[Anonymous]

Carefirst PPO premiums are 3000 per month. Deductible are 6000k per year. 20% copay. All in about 45k per year.

Outrageous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank Obama for that huge spike in price.

I bet most of the twits on here voted for him, yet have the lack of insight to complain about their healthcare costs!

Now I'll wait for the sycophants to defend our dear leader and blame the repubs for all our ills.

3...2...1..

You must not be old enough to remember the increase in premiums before Obama.