Insurance: No empathy here for the so-called "99%"

[AZRedhawk44]

So, I left one employer and am moving to another.

I won't have employer-provided health insurance until April 1st, the way things are working out.  My options are to COBRA my way to April at a cost of $400/mo, or to get my own insurance.  I chose to get my own insurance, aiming for a "contingency" style of health care with relatively high deductible but otherwise decent care in the event something bad happens in the next 90 days.

In 1 hour, I shopped insurance and got a Humana plan with dental included, for $93 a month.  There were MUCH cheaper plans available.

OWS and Obama, suck my rocks.  The unwashed hippies and junky dirtbags can shave a few $20's off their pot and Schlitz budgets, and buy their own damn health insurance.  Eff ewe all.

[RoadKingLarry]

COBRA is a joke, except it ain't funny.

[BridgeRunner]

How very nice for you.

I use $600 worth of prescriptions/month and have two chronic health conditions that require meds and regular medical care to keep under control. I would very much like to develop my own business in between working short-term contract jobs. That is the path I'm on now, but it's not sustainable because of the health-care issue, so I'm working on various prospects.

I doubt if I can get private insurance. If I can, it would cost a small fortune, and I still wouldn't be able to afford the oop costs.

I'm not a junky and I showered this morning.

There is a better constitutional argument for federal intervention in ensuring there's a health-care safety net than there is for federal intervention in k-12 education. There is a better capitalist argument for gov't-back health care for people like me than for retirees.  I'm growing the economy less than I could be because I need health care. This is a problem. The lack of affordable health care or insurance is a major factor limiting small-scale entrepreneurship.

And if you want to start down the road of "suck it up, your problem, not mine" I'd like to point out that my meds would be dirt-cheap and accessible absent government intervention, both FDA and DEA.  The fedgov has explicitly outlawed purchase of more than 30 days worth of some of my meds and made it very difficult and more expensive to obtain.  Another one has increased to 15x its previous price because the Fedgov banned CFC's as propellant, and HFA inhalers are all under patent, and will be for a while.  

If I pay the jacked-up, gov't imposed prices for my meds and one dr. visit per month--probably what it averages out to--I'd spend 25% of my pay on basic health care. Another 25% for childcare, another for rent, and I'd have to cover utilities, food, clothing, transportation, and everything else on $750/month.  So much for ever saving a dime or not living paycheck to paycheck.  And that does not include health insurance.

And it is not because I have health issues. It is because the DEA and the FDA and the rest of the .gov alphabet soup hasn't bothered to notice that they're making it impossibly for me to ever get ahead, even a little. Or maybe they did notice. And just didn't give a *expletive deleted*it.

Obviously I'm not part of OWS, as I regard government rather than business as the sector most at fault in creating this f-Ed up situation. But to dismis the the whole thing because you have no problem getting cheap insurance so those the rest of us should too displays massive ignorance of OWS and of the issues they are raising.

[Nick1911]

This is kind of thread drift, but random question from the peanut gallery:  Why aren't any of the other biologically inactive, nonflammable, easily liquified propellants used?  Say tetrafluoroethane or difluoromonochloromethane.  As far as I know there's plenty of off patent, biologically inactive halogen group compounds out there.  Many of which, like the two above, are already manufactured in bulk and affordable prices for the refrigeration industry.

[Perd Hapley]

But to dismis the the whole thing because you have no problem getting cheap insurance so those the rest of us should too displays massive ignorance of OWS and of the issues they are raising.

So your theory is that AZ Redhawk was out there occupying Wall Street until he found out how cheap his insurance was? And you think he's now dismissing them based on that alone? Oh, and his MASSIVE IGNORANCE. How could I forget the MASSIVE IGNORANCE?

[mtnbkr]

In 1 hour, I shopped insurance and got a Humana plan with dental included, for $93 a month.  There were MUCH cheaper plans available.

You're young and healthy.  My parents, at age 60, found themselves buying their own insurance after my dad was "given" early retirement from his job of 30 years.  They do not pay $93/month and what they get barely covers anything.  In addition, the company is such a joke that they ended up paying thousands out of pocket this year.  Expenses that should have been covered per the Ins company's documents.  They'll eventually get the money back, but it's taking a lot of fighting.

Chris

[French G.]

And if you want to start down the road of "suck it up, your problem, not mine" I'd like to point out that my meds would be dirt-cheap and accessible absent government intervention, both FDA and DEA.  The fedgov has explicitly outlawed purchase of more than 30 days worth of some of my meds and made it very difficult and more expensive to obtain.  Another one has increased to 15x its previous price because the Fedgov banned CFC's as propellant, and HFA inhalers are all under patent, and will be for a while. 

My wife went through the 30 day hurdle, trying to get extra meds for overseas travel and got accused of doctor shopping. As far as the FDA, I do not like where we are at, but the full on libertarian battle cry of down with government falls short too. Product safety is a very necessary function and one that we don't want to completely abandon just to get cheap pills. On further thread drift consider that the high cost of introducing drugs to market coupled with the ridiculously short patent protection leads to high drug prices. That and of course most of the rest of the world being a subsidized medicine hellhole meaning that most of the pharma companies make their money here.

As to the OP, that sounds good for the short term, mainly a catastrophic coverage deal. If you had medical issues ongoing you'd go broke. I am on cheap gov't dole health insurance.  Really, I pay $200/month for family coverage through Tricare Reserve Select, promising my posterior in the event of war in return for cheap health insurance. Given my self-employed wife looking at 800-1000/month for private health insurance as a self -employed, this was one of my main reasons for staying in the Reserves. Further, she can not get disability insurance since writer=artist=mentally unstable, at least as far as the insurance companies see it.

[vaskidmark]

Another supporter, unwillingly, of Big Pharma.  I was forking over in excess of $1,200/month to be able to buy drugs for another $1,900/month as opposed to the $5K+ if I paid straight cash.  It was cheaper going to the doctor than to the drug store, and besides I could usually get one or two scrips covered via samples.

Then the bottom dropped out of everything, and just to make things even more funner I made several trips to the hospital in order to avoid becoming dead from my pre-existing conditions.  No insurance, no meds, and no future.

Thanks to a change in the rules I am now covered at the VA.  It aint what I was used to when I had coverage under Anathema BC/BS (carry over from work 'cause I'd never qualify for "new" coverage), but they have changed from the snake pits to actually a step or two above the welfare hospital/ER care that still wants to charge me for waiting waiting in the ambulance while they clear the "I'm entitled" folks out of a bed so I can get treated.

There's no simple or easy answer.  There are too many variables.  The average diet will not support Soylent Green as a healthy source of nutrition.  But if the amount of money being spent on soda and snacks I saw at the ER was any indication of the actual financial condition of the "I can't afford health insurance" folks, I'd say that was not a truthful statement.  Maybe, in order to dole out care we do need an intrusive nanny peerng into various orifices, as re[rehensible as that sounds.

But if anybody asked, I'd like to go back to the start of the HMOs, when you got lots of preventive care so more folks stayed out of expensive acute care.  It used to work (for maybe 3 or 4 years).  Want to guess why it slid into its current state?

stay safe.

[Monkeyleg]

I've been self-employed for 24 years, meaning that I've been buying individual policies--meaning expensive--for just about all of those years. Each year the premiums went up, so I had to opt for higher deductibles each time. One year we were at a $5000 deductible, which meant that we pretty much paid all of our medical bills ourselves.

I had some major medical expenses, which meant major out of pocket expenses. Also, I've been seeing a shrink since 1980, something that would and has disqualified me from getting a policy. So, for 31 years I've been paying cash for that.

I mention the above so that nobody thinks I've had it easy when it comes to medical and health insurance costs, and that I therefore have some bona fides when I ask why I should pay for someone else's health care insurance, or their health care, period. I can't find a single constitutional justification, as there isn't one. I can find a justification in my heart, and I go with that, but for the truly needy, not for people who can pay for it.

Considering the way I've abused my body, I'd say I've been blessed with good health. I know others who have not. Many of those others have been blessed with things I would give my right arm for. Am I entitled to those things, simply because I wasn't blessed at birth with them?

[BridgeRunner]

Re: Constitution. Read what I said. Carefully. Hint: I was comparing two things, not making a determination about the legality of one thing.

Re: Entitlement. Yes, I am entitled to advocate for government not clearly and directly pricing my health out of my reach because the environmental lobby and the anti-drug beaureaucracy are more important to the average congress-critter than is my ability to both keep breathing and build a financially stable future.  It can be credibly argued that I have a duty to do so.

Re: Capitalism. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness/prosperity applies to everyone, even those of us who failed to win the genetic lottery.  The point of living within a political unit that supports a capitalist society is not to use the power of a gov't to exclude large swathes of humanity from participation in that society. That sounds more like something more uh...post-feudal, maybe?  But then,

The point is not that taxes should pay $800/month of my medical bills.  The point is that the .gov has no business directly causing my medical expenses to be about three times what would be a reasonable cost for what I get, for reasons as simple as the <expletive deleted> war on drugs  or bulshit envinmental impact of cfc's, and as complex as the intereststing way congress has decided that insurance companies should somehow be catered to in resolving health cost and cost administration issues. 

It ain't about patient safety, which the US is not that great at anyway. It's about politics and lobbies jacking costs up and millions on each side of the argument talking too much and listening too little.

Newsflash: This is not a simple issue.  It just isn't nearly as simple as you've made it out to.  You've hit on all the republican sound bites, but your response doesn't adequately address the issues raised.

OWS is not composed mostly of disreputatable and dirty addicts, either.

[Monkeyleg]

You've hit on all the republican sound bites, but your response doesn't adequately address the issues raised.

OWS is not composed mostly of disreputatable and dirty addicts, either.

No, I didn't hit on Republican sound bites, I hit on my own principles, and those agree with yours on your points about government interference and catering to insurance companies.

As for OWS, I don't recognize the acronym.

[BReilley]

As for OWS, I don't recognize the acronym.

Occupy Wall Street.

[Jamisjockey]

Like Sara said, this issue is extremely more complicated.  My family of four pays over $640 a month for insurance, and our deducitbles are several thousand a year. 
Not exactly cheap.
And the same government claiming they will save us from it, has mostly made matters worse. 

[Fly320s]

Repeat after me:

Health care is not a right.
Health insurance is not a right.

[Jamisjockey]

Repeat after me:

Health care is not a right.
Health insurance is not a right.

This. 

[Tallpine]

I'd like to point out that my meds would be dirt-cheap and accessible absent government intervention, both FDA and DEA

Right there is the problem