Health Insurance Tale of Woe - Coming to a Company Near You

I knew it would not be pretty, the meeting about the change in health care plans. HR laid out the scenario in all its ugly reality. Costs keep soaring (yes, I know). Next year the current plan will cost a whopping additional near 16%. The committee decided to change to a high deductible savings plan option.



I listen to the impact and my heart sinks. While I am grateful to even have the option of getting health care, even on the new plan it will cost me 15% more, and sadly, even more of the regular costs will now be out of my pocket. Sigh. Flat salaries, less contributed to retirement, and now more to shell out for health care. And I cannot be without it. Lord preserve me!



For healthy people, this plan makes some sense. They will get to keep any money they do not spend on health care, and it becomes a sort of IRA for them. But for me it may mean that I will not be able to afford the care I need when I need it. I will have to pay out - on top of my monthly payments to participate in this plan - $6,000 up front before insurance does much of anything for me. I figure at the rate of care I am currently handling for myself and the boys, that will come about the end of January. Well before I have anywhere near that amount in my account.



Now the possibility that I will face denial of care is quite real. I fear where we are going in this country on the health care scene. One shiny faced employee related how her husband's company has had this plan for awhile, and it all works out rosy peachy for her. Doctors have been happy to let people make payments (the shiny faced employee's family has not needed such) . . .



Of course, she is not battling cancer either. I wonder if she would be floored to know that my health care last year ran well over $500,000. And that there have already been times when the insurance denied a medication or a test that the doctor felt was necessary.



I have heard on the news stories of how someone sold all that they had and still could not afford the medical care that they needed. We want to believe that these stories are exceptions - somehow the person managed to get themselves in a pickle, or something was awry with the policies of some fly by night company. I don't think it is as uncommon as we hope. Even one of my sons with health issues has had to hope the ER will take him in despite no health insurance and no money.

Well, there is no hope for it. This will be the only option. Take it or leave and, and I cannot leave it. Sigh. The saving grace is that God has always taken care of me, and just because the situation looks scary is no reason to think that God will somehow abandon me now. If he can get me through chemo, this should be a walk in the park.