A friend was hit by a car while riding his bike in the twisty streets of Harvard Square. He was wearing a helmet during the crash, but the impact was severe enough to land him briefly in a coma.
When he came to in the hospital, the first words out of his mouth weren't "What happened?" or "Where am I?" but rather these: "Oh NO! I'm not insured!"
He was so upset that he tried to leave the hospital, concussion and all. Nurses had to sedate him (sadly, further boosting his bill).
I don't want to put myself or my family in that kind of situation. But my work contract is wrapping up, and I need insurance for at least 3 months. COBRA will run $392 a month—ouch. Yet it would be $700 monthly to add just little ole me to my husband's school district-sponsored insurance policy (which we aren't even allowed to do until September's open-enrollment period, which determines coverage for October). While that's ridiculously steep, at least our kids are covered "for free."
So, I'm shopping for an individual plan. And I'm finding out why so many young people either can’t afford or decide to forgo insurance coverage, as this MSNBC article points out.
Mostly, I want to be able to get refills on my asthma inhaler and allergy medicine (breathing is nice!), and I also don't want to bankrupt my family should I be hit by a car or blow my knee out while jogging.
While it's been disputed, one study indicates that as many as half of personal bankruptcies are related to medical bills, even though many of these folks have insurance. They went broke after finding it doesn't cover chemo, surgery, or other pricey procedures, or they had co-pays and co-insurance and deductible bills that added up, and up. So there's no way I'm skipping out on finding a plan.
Well, after some web surfing, I found a nice high-deductible policy from Regence that would run just $71 a month.
Cheap!
But penny wise, pound foolish.
Because in the future, if I were to be insured under another policy after Regence, I'd have to wait 9 months (!!) to have any of my asthma or allergy-related doctor visits or prescriptions covered. That's the mandatory "pre-existing condition waiting period" that bites you if you've been insured under a paltry "catastrophic" plan, due to recent changes in Washington State law. Other states have implemented similar measures, in the interest of preventing residents from being under-insured.
But the policy I was about to buy sure didn't look like a catastrophic plan--you know, the ones that cover you if you were hit by a car, but still make you pay an arm and a leg if you get strep throat. But sure enough, I found that any policy with a deductible is $1,750 or more is considered catastrophic coverage.
This 9-month waiting period wasn't spelled out to me on the application form (at least, not anywhere that wasn't in inscrutable legalese, in a font bigger than size 7.5). I only found out because I had to call a customer service representative with a question on when the application was due for Sept. 1 coverage. He mentioned it offhand, like it was no big deal that only two of the policies offered on their site would let anyone avoid that extended waiting period.
And … a basic non-catastrophic policy would bump the fee to $276 a month. And oh, only 2 of the 7 individual plans on their site were non-catastrophic. I also needed to fill out a 33-page questionnaire on my health history.
Good thing I have a month to work on that! The co-insurance, strict preferred provider limitations, and annoyingly difficult-to-navigate provider directory seemed like no big deals after eyeing it. But the whole wool-being-pulled-over-the-eyes element made me want to certainly consider a number of other companies; at least the state offers a handy insurance-shopper's guide for doing so.
Sheesh. That COBRA policy is looking like a bargain, if only to keep my blood pressure down. (If yours is high, you may want to avoid this BusinessWeek story on insurance companies as monopolies.)
While I'm grateful that legislation passed by President Obama partially subsidizes COBRA payments (which would bring my monthly bill to $360 or so), I have to say that the universal coverage proposal, "rationing" and all, is looking better and better by the minute. I don't want any "Oh NO! I'm not insured!" moments in my future.
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