Today I hope you don’t mind if I take a minute to vent. It’s gotten to the point lately where I have become beyond frustrated with my health insurance company. I think I almost went over the deep end last night when I realized that they hadn’t covered any of the costs from Nick’s allergist appointment. They didn’t even give an in-network doctor discount (which they usually do, and I know that it was).
Let’s step back in time here for a moment. Quite a few years ago now, when Jason was still a manager at Pizza Hut, we had decent insurance. We had a bit of a high deductible, but other than that it covered quite a bit. Then all of the Pizza Hut restaurants in the area were bought out by a Canadian company, and that was the end of our health insurance. Jason’s current job does offer health care, but it’s not great and very expensive, so we’ve stuck with the insurance that we bought on our own after we lost the one we had.
Right now we have Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Michigan (the My Blue plan) and I hate it. We spend a lot of money every month and get little for it. We originally had purchased the highest plan they had because it included maternity costs. By the time Nick was born the monthly premium cost of it had shot up so it was only $2 less than our mortgage! Here’s the kicker though….they didn’t cover any of my doctor visits for my pregnancy. Someone tell me what I was paying for insurance that had maternity coverage for if they weren’t even going to pay for a huge part of my doctor bills.
After Nick was born I changed our policy so it had a high deductible and didn’t cover extras such as maternity and vision (which the first plan had also had). This lowered the costs, but I still feel like we pay a ton. It’s very frustrating though when a huge part of our income every month goes to paying for our insurance, but then we have to find all of this extra money to pay for medical bills for the millions of things that aren’t covered. Oh, and forget getting sick, because the insurance won’t pay for sick doctor visits. What is the point of insurance if it doesn’t help you when you’re down? It’s terrible making Nick be sick for awhile until we decide that he’s sick enough that we really need to go to the doctor. At almost $200 a visit though we can’t just go in for the heck of it.
The only time I was happy with the insurance was when we had to take Nick to the ER because of his clipped finger. At least that time they covered a good portion which was helpful. The last thing anyone needs after the stress of the ER are a ton of huge medical bills, so it was nice that the insurance covered a large chunk. I suppose I should add that it is good when it comes to check-ups. They at least cover those (and well baby visits) plus all necessary shots.
I spent hours the other week researching every insurance company I could think of to try to find a better plan, but there isn’t one out there. Sure I found some that covered more, but they were way out of our price range. It shouldn’t be so difficult, or so expensive for me to take care of my family. There are days when I wonder why I have health insurance. I feel that I spend more for the insurance than I sometimes would to just pay every thing out of pocket, since I almost do that anyways! Of course with the new health care law it will soon be illegal to not have health insurance. I have really had it with health insurance though and I wish someone would find a way to make it and health care obtainable without putting us hard working people into debt!
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You’re absolutely right. If you have any type of private insurance, the pricing is out of control and covers very little. We found out after our son’s trip to the ER for a seizure that it would have been cheaper for us to not have insurance, as they would have offered to cut the bill in half if we paid it. As it was, it was a $4,000 visit, so why are we paying $600a month for insurance that covers what exactly?
Yikes Tiffani, that was a big bill. If you figure out what it covers let me know, because I still haven’t figured it out
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