The issues that I want to get across under the old system of HI.
1. Having a diagnosed condition jeopardizes your ability to get individual HI.
2. Group HI handcuffs the employee to the employer for unhealthy employees, andr Raises costs to the employer for the same reasons and healther employees with valuable talents will seek less stringent environments.
3. The ability to pay for HI is less than an issue than being able to get HI.
4. Its a rigged system that eventually forces out a person out of private insurance and into medicaid or eventually into medicare.
-- Edited by longprime on Friday 16th of August 2013 11:44:40 PM
Can't take an outside job because I am primary caregiver to Mom @97.
DS has a new job, a big raise, an educational toy project that he hopes to commercialize, and Monday climbed Mt Rainier (without telling his mommy). No GF but lives in a house with 4 single women who do a lot of urban farming. I wonder????
-- Edited by longprime on Friday 16th of August 2013 07:49:17 PM
My H just got a job at 63 (after retiring with pension from previous company); benefits are worse at company and cost more, but salary is close to equivalent. Find a job, it's possible, and pay out-of-pocket. The flora and fauna of the Northwest can wait. :)
Kid has job and no GF, right? Better than the other way around-- trust me. :)
-- Edited by hope on Friday 16th of August 2013 07:21:10 PM
Finding a job with benefits at 60 in 2010 with a known health condition? If a woman had a lump, would she wait for another 3 years before ObamaCare kicked in? [Although in 2010, ACA said that you couldn't be denied HI for pre-exiting, you could be priced out]. Pay it ourselves but Retail Medical for prostate is >$60,000 vs Negotiated rate of ~$10,0000, and you would still be couldn't get HI without exclusion.
The Delay implementation of ACA, reduced my options. The implementation of ACA however allowed me to get HI in the state's insurance Medicaid pool without exception and at a lower cost.
in 2006, when DS had to get his own HI at age 22.5yo, a 80/20, HSA, high deductible was $89/mn. Today in 2013 at 28yo, its $285/mn. Both without drugs. It will be interesting to see what ACA will be for a young person buying private HI, or a young person with company group HI.
My state pooled HI at age 63 is $565, 80/20. high deductible with drugs although with high copays.
-- Edited by longprime on Friday 16th of August 2013 07:51:53 AM
I imagine you had other options, though I don't know if they'd be so good. You could have just gotten insurance with the exclusion until Obama care came out, and if you felt you had to have something done immediately, paid for it out of pocket. You or your wife could have gotten a job that offered health insurance with no exclusions temporarily, until you were able to qualify for medicare or Obamacare. Or you could have just gambled and waited until you qualified for either. So there were other options, just maybe none too palatable. I suspect Obamacare may be very expensive for you, not exactly the savior you'd wanted.
In April 2010, I had my regular physical, with the annual digital prostate exam. Maybe it's because my primary is a female, that she felt an increased roughness on the prostate that first was noticeable a year earlier. Biopsy showed 3 of 12 with aggressive cell types. PSA normal and well within range. On company COBRA @ $550/mn that was expiring in Sept 2010 but extended Obama-Economic stimulus act made Cobra extendable to Nov 2010 but at $1550/mn.
at that time, ACA wasn't clear and implementation was to be phased in.
So the initial diagnosis doomed me to a surgery even though the prognosis was marginal at best and a lifetime of complications.
Since my primary noticed the roughness on the prostate and recommended a specialist, getting off of COBRA for a personal insurance plan became impossible since any insurance would rate me if accepted and have a exclusion for prostate. Investigation on my part, discovered that I could not obtain a personal HI until a doctor would clear me of any prostate issues which is impossible because prostate problems is a statistic diagnosis and highly subjective to the cell analysis. For males, 100% of us will die. And most of us will die with some indications of prostate cancer. A few of us will die with no indication of prostate cancer-me, because I no longer have a prostate, removed based on a slight chance of a nonaggressive but possible future diagnosis.
Makes sense? IOW, inorder to get health insurance, I had to get prostate surgery for a low grade diagnosis. If we had ObamaCare, six months earlier. I could have the option to wait or undergo the surgery.
-- Edited by longprime on Thursday 15th of August 2013 11:31:22 PM
In April 2010, I had my regular physical, with the annual digital prostate exam. Maybe it's because my primary is a female, that she felt an increased roughness on the prostate that first was noticeable a year earlier. Biopsy showed 3 of 12 with aggressive cell types. PSA normal and well within range. On company COBRA, that was expiring in Sept 2010 but extended Obama-Economic stimulus act made Cobra extendable to Nov but at $1550/mn.
