[Diesel350z]

Please list the following:

How are you gettnig your insurance, through Employer or individual insurance?
Company?
Who are you covering?
Premium cost?

-------------------------------------------------------------
Employer
Aetna POS
Myself and Spouse
$288/month

[mango23]

Originally Posted by Diesel350z

Please list the following:

How are you gettnig your insurance, through Employer or individual insurance?
Company?
Who are you covering?
Premium cost?

-------------------------------------------------------------
Employer
Aetna POS
Myself and Spouse
$288/month

Indiviual (self employed)
BCBS of florida
Just covers me It is a savings account policy, I forget what they are called it.
Deduct 1500 and after they pay 100%
$497 a month has gone up since I got it but just a few dollars a year. I am over 60 by the way.
I had a group policy for my wife and I but it ultimately went from $310.00 a month in 1998 to over $2000.00 a month, thats right with 3 zeros, in 2006. I have not been sick a day in my life but had a hip surgery due to a slip on some shampoo. I want health care reform because even though I have coverage I have already seen from personal experience what can happen with my small business group policy.

My wife and I worked for Obama and gave 10 of thousands of dollars to his campaign based just on this one issue, health care reform. Basically I am not political at all but this issue moved me. I personally am pretty much untouchable, I can afford anything but a lot of people suffer everyday and it is not right. A few dozen people are killed in Toyotas and it is a world wide emergency. Here we have over 100,000 people die every year due to malpractice and lack of insurance in this country and people just act like "So what". Are you F'n kidding me.

[giz2000]

What health insurance??

[personalensign79]

Originally Posted by giz2000

What health insurance??

Same here...too expensive.

[personalensign79]

Originally Posted by mango23

Indiviual (self employed)
BCBS of florida
Just covers me It is a savings account policy, I forget what they are called it.
Deduct 1500 and after they pay 100%
$497 a month has gone up since I got it but just a few dollars a year. I am over 60 by the way.
I had a group policy for my wife and I but it ultimately went from $310.00 a month in 1998 to over $2000.00 a month, thats right with 3 zeros, in 2006. I have not been sick a day in my life but had a hip surgery due to a slip on some shampoo. I want health care reform because even though I have coverage I have already seen from personal experience what can happen with my small business group policy.

My wife and I worked for Obama and gave 10 of thousands of dollars to his campaign based just on this one issue, health care reform. Basically I am not political at all but this issue moved me. I personally am pretty much untouchable, I can afford anything but a lot of people suffer everyday and it is not right. A few dozen people are killed in Toyotas and it is a world wide emergency. Here we have over 100,000 people die every year due to malpractice and lack of insurance in this country and people just act like "So what". Are you F'n kidding me.

I completely agree.
I had complete employer coverage for years at only about $125 a month. It was great for the most part. Then my employer reclassified us and we were no longer eligible for employer subsidized coverage and I had to drop it because at full price it is way too much money.
I had BCBS catastrophic for awhile at only about $550 per year but still I'd like to be able to go for preventative check ups and other things. I just cannot afford it so things go unchecked.

[Synergy1]

Employer
BC/BS
Myself and Spouse both retired
$410/month + rising

[mango23]

Originally Posted by personalensign79

I completely agree.
I had complete employer coverage for years at only about $125 a month. It was great for the most part. Then my employer reclassified us and we were no longer eligible for employer subsidized coverage and I had to drop it because at full price it is way too much money.
I had BCBS catastrophic for awhile at only about $550 per year but still I'd like to be able to go for preventative check ups and other things. I just cannot afford it so things go unchecked.

There is the catch-22. Suppose you decide to get a check up, it only will cost you a few hundred dollars easily affordable. "BUT", what if they find something? No one will ever sell you health insurance again. If you are an average American you will almost certainly go bankrupt. I am sure this is in your mind as you think about seeing a doctor for anything. You are one illness away from losing everything you have worked a lifetime for.

While working on the Obama campaign I met a man who told me a story about his father. His father lost his health insurance and had to begin self paying his medical costs. He did not have anything terminal but only expensive. He was not poor and could have paid for quite some time. After doing the numbers he made a critical choice.

He wrote a letter to his son expressing that he had enough money left to pay for collage for the grand children as well as make life a little easier for his son and wife. In the letter he spoke about part of the money going back to the inheritance he got from his own father, his sons grandfather. He did not want what represented a of lifetime work of two generations to be thrown away on one sick man.

He made the choice to take his own life and leave a legacy he hoped would do some good for another generation of his family. He signed it, mailed it then went to his garage and sat in his car with the engine running. Any time I was getting tired and angry at all the BS we had to put up with, all I had to do was take out that letter and I knew what I was working for.

[TriMT7]

I'm actually very lucky. My employer covers 100% of the cost for BCBS. I did have to choose, however, one of two plans. One has less benefits (free), and the other would have cost me about $60/month for more benefits. I chose the lesser of the plans because I'm 27 and in good health. My smoking boss who's 50.... well, he had to take the more benefits plan.

Under the "reduced plan," an individual + spouse is 370/month, and in the "more benefits" plan, an individual + spouse is about 520/month.

[personalensign79]

Originally Posted by mango23

There is the catch-22. Suppose you decide to get a check up, it only will cost you a few hundred dollars easily affordable. "BUT", what if they find something? No one will ever sell you health insurance again. If you are an average American you will almost certainly go bankrupt. I am sure this is in your mind as you think about seeing a doctor for anything. You are one illness away from losing everything you have worked a lifetime for.

While working on the Obama campaign I met a man who told me a story about his father. His father lost his health insurance and had to begin self paying his medical costs. He did not have anything terminal but only expensive. He was not poor and could have paid for quite some time. After doing the numbers he made a critical choice.

He wrote a letter to his son expressing that he had enough money left to pay for collage for the grand children as well as make life a little easier for his son and wife. In the letter he spoke about part of the money going back to the inheritance he got from his own father, his sons grandfather. He did not want what represented a of lifetime work of two generations to be thrown away on one sick man.

He made the choice to take his own life and leave a legacy he hoped would do some good for another generation of his family. He signed it, mailed it then went to his garage and sat in his car with the engine running. Any time I was getting tired and angry at all the BS we had to put up with, all I had to do was take out that letter and I knew what I was working for.

That's so sad. It just should not happen in this country.

That's an excellent point you make. Actually now I am underemployed close to completely unemployed so I can't afford the few hundred it takes to get something checked. But the more important point is, like you said, if something was found...forget about it. My younger sister (28) has already had two major surgeries (we are talking heart and female reproductive) and she is very lucky she has health insurance. I don't know what would happen if she lost her job and had to purchase it on her own with those pre-existing issues.

[mango23]

Originally Posted by personalensign79

That's so sad. It just should not happen in this country.

That's an excellent point you make. Actually now I am underemployed close to completely unemployed so I can't afford the few hundred it takes to get something checked. But the more important point is, like you said, if something was found...forget about it. My younger sister (28) has already had two major surgeries (we are talking heart and female reproductive) and she is very lucky she has health insurance. I don't know what would happen if she lost her job and had to purchase it on her own with those pre-existing issues.

I learned so much when I got involved in this it was mind numbing. There are people right not reading this forum paying insurance that if they get seriously sick will lose their insurance and don't even know it. I will give you an example. You contact a company about buying Insurance and they send an agent over. This is just a guy working for a commission for selling a policy who last week may have been selling cars. He wants to get the policy approved so he will fudge information, often without you even knowing it.

Lets say he asks you your weight and you say 174. He tells you that over 172 it will be rejected so he says, "Are you planing on losing some weight soon" and you of course say yes. So he says "I will just put down 160 and it should be no problem" and he does. A few years later you have an illness and they discover you lied on your application they don't pay and drop you. They may find that a few weeks before they sold you the policy you went to the doctor for a splinter in your finger and you were weighed in the office at the time.

My example was sort of a silly one but many salesmen were so bad they would not even put down things like family histories of heart disease so they could get the commission for the sale. Or pose the questions in such a way as to get the answers they wanted. Trust me, right now someone on this forum has a policy with a lie in it that will get them canceled when they need it the most. With todays computers and the net they can find almost anything about you. One email and they have your whole history laid out in front of them and they employ people whose jobs are finding these things that let them not pay, it is all they do and they are good at it.

People who say, "I have nothing to worry about I have good insurance" are fools. It is like trying to beat a casino at their own games, you can't win. I am not really for big government, quite the opposite. But in this case we need someone bigger then us on our side. Insurance companies hold all the cards and your life in their hands and could care less about you.