I wasn’t sure about posting this, it’s just a bump in the road in the grand scheme of things, but then I received another bill for over $500 yesterday and I’m pissed off, so here ya go…
Let’s talk about health insurance for a minute. I have health insurance and I work for a big corporation, so it’s pretty good health insurance. If I catch a cold and have to go to the doctor they pay for almost all of it. I get a yearly pap smear and two dental cleaning for free. I haven’t ever been terribly sick and am not on any expensive medications, so I chose the plan that has a high deductible and takes the least amount of money out of my paycheck. This is all fine and dandy unless I get sick and have to go to the doctor for a million appointments, which is exactly what happened.
Before you all get concerned about my health, let me say, I’m fine, so don’t start worrying.
Now that I’m fine I get to start paying off my bills. As of right now I’m over $1500 in the hole. I thought I had about $250 until I hit my dedcutible, but after the most recent bill showed up I’m not so sure. So I get to spend some quality time on the phone with my insurance provider and cross my fingers that they will start covering my bills very soon as I have at least three appointments left.
Having a mortgage and a car payment means I’m on a strict budget with just a little left over every week if I want to go out or buy something. Now I’m scrambling to hold on to my weekly allowance and use that to pay off my bills, which at this point, will take over a year.
More than anything, it’s throwing me off because it wasn’t part of the plan. A million doctor’s appointments and a bunch of bills and vacation and extra aerial classes all at once – just wasn’t in my budget. I cringe every time another bill shows up and my “insurance” provider has only paid $30 bucks. I had planned to get my wisdom teeth out soon, but now that my savings is being drained, they’ll be staying in my head for another year.
I know that I’m lucky that I do have some savings and if I really got stuck my parents would help me out, not everyone has that. Medical expenses is the number one reason people go bankrupt and that just seems so incredibly wrong to me.
I never really felt I had a strong voice in this debate because I have health insurance. Now, looking at that pile of bills that I have to pay, I have something to say…health insurance is a fucking sham. Don’t get sick because whether you have it or not, you’ll still be screwed.
Comments (9)
I ran into something similar earlier this year – a cough, yes a cough, turned into a $530 cough by the time you added up prescriptions, appts and xrays. I had to get the xrays to get the medicine and you better believed I huffed and puffed the whole way.
What I did find out was that I was double-billed. I call on every bill because I’ve found that techs or nurses key in the wrong code. When I switched gynos, she informed me I didn’t have a cervix because of my paps was keyed in wrong. I won’t even go into how they confused an eye exam with a pap smear either.
sillygrrl Reply:
September 30th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
yikes – i’m gonna go double check all my bills right now! thanks for the tip
Ugh. That’s awful! I’m sorry. :[
Stupid health insurance.
Another reader mentioned the film “Sicko.” I thought of that when you said whether you have health insurance or not, you’re screwed either way. I think that all the U.S. citizens in the film (going bankrupt, tons of $$ problems) all actually had health insurance. Ridiculous.
healthcare is just ridiculous sham :-/
i’m glad that you are ok though!
I had my appendix taken out almost 4 years ago and it cost me $15,000 without insurance. Obviously, having been in college the last 4 years, it’s not paid off.
I’m teaching in Korea now, and last month, I smashed my kneecap when I fell on the driveway and decided that I should go to a doctor when the swelling wouldn’t go down and it hurt to walk on. For a doctor’s visit, an x-ray and some painkillers, I paid 5,000 Won. That’s a little over $4.
This is the first time I’ve ever had insurance in my life and it’s beyond my comprehension that I can actually go to a doctor now without having had an arm torn off or something else equally horrific. Frankly, with the health care system in the US, if I did lose an arm, I’d probably rather just slap a bandaid on it than go to a hospital.
While I am from Canada and we have universal health care, insurance coverage sucks.
The coverage I have is dumb and only covers $130 worth of prescriptions. After that, you’re on your own. I reached that in April and well, not having a job and having to pay for your own prescriptions without a co-pay sucks.
sillygrrl Reply:
September 25th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Wow, yeah $130 is not much at all. Some people will reach that in just a month.
I agree with this post. I have the best insurance I have had in all of my adult life right now. But I still deal with a lot of costs. It’s annoying. My insurance doesn’t cover IUD’s (though they will pay for birth control pills). So I paid out of pocket for mine. Then when I had issues, I had to have it taken out. FOR HEALTH REASONS. But my insurance wouldn’t cover having it taken out. I want to stab them.
I’m still $2000 in the hole for a sickness I dealt with a couple of years ago. :(
So sorry to hear about your troubles. I agree – healthcare in this country is a mess. I consider myself lucky to have descent insurance through my employer, but like you, if anything went seriously wrong I’d still be in trouble.
Have you ever watched the documentary “Sicko”? It’s incredibly eye-opening.
I still hold out hope for a national healthcare system one day…