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Health Insurance When Leaving the Corporate World?
An anonymous reader writes "I've been working at a large company since I got out of college, so I didn't have to give much thought to getting my own healthcare plan. Now I'm thinking about leaving the corporate world and starting out on my own. I have a family now, so I need to make sure we're going to be covered should anything happen. Researching online turns up horror stories of people trying to get individual healthcare plans, or getting denied coverage on plans they thought they had. Does anyone else have experience going through this and what you've had to deal with, or am I making too big a deal of it?"
Move to the UK or another country that cares
Move to any 1st world country not the USA.
There is no step 2.
1) Don't get sick
2) Die quickly
Depends on the province; it's often free no matter what your situation is. Contrary to Republican scare ads, it's also of excellent quality provided that you don't go to the emergency room for a cold or a stubbed toe.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Supposedly one of the strengths of the U.S. economy is its ability to rapidly adapt to changes. This has been used to justify the lack of job protections for workers. But as the poster has shown, having health insurance tied to your employer obstructs the kind of entrepreneurism that's part of our rapid adaptation.
I don't understand why this argument hasn't come up during the health-care debates. It would have let Democrats position themselves as pro-economy.
If this doesn't highlight the problems with the US health insurance system, nothing will. You had to trade 15 hours a week of your life simply to be able to live a healthy life. That sounds an awful lot like indentured servitude to me.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I'm sorry, I missed the bit where you had constructive advice to offer to the poster.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I'll tell you a fact from a Canadian perspective of a middle class person. For all the complaining about the "death panels" we actually don't have here (vs. your for-profit insurance companies you guys do have) and saying that we have to wait forever (which we don't, prioritized: if you need it you get it *now*), when the average Canadian looks at the situation the average US'ian is in: we feel HORROR. God people, how can you choose to do nothing about it?
Shh.
[Move to Canada] and enjoy universal health care for about $100 per month for a family of 4, unless you can show economic hardship, and then it's free.
With all due respect, and I really don't mean this as a troll, but you aren't just paying $100 a month -- you simply cannot afford any medical system for that sum (even if you weren't screwed like the States into paying stupid large administrative costs) . In reality, a large fraction of the money for the health care system comes from taxes which you are ultimately going to pay.
I am a big proponent of some form of public healthcare but I dislike the fact that many of the people here in the US that are arguing for it will not acknowledge that it's simply going to expensive. They point to the naive out-of-pocket expense in Canada or The Netherlands without acknowledging the true cost of the system in the form of higher taxes. My position is that we can and should afford such expense but one does not do any favors to the debate by dissembling about the cost. If anything, it's ammunition to opponents that can point to your dishonesty in selling the plan.
There is no free lunch and there is definitely no first-world healthcare for $100/family/month. The closer figure it probably $650/family/month. Again, I believe it's a fine way to spend that money (and we are affluent enough to afford it) so I'm not approaching this from a position of ideological opposition, only one of demanding honesty from everyone.
Cite: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_spe_per_per-health-spending-per-person. The exact numbers are highly debatable, especially since we don't know how much various plans will change the cost structure here in the US but $100/f/m is simply unreasonable.
These responses of move to "XYZ" or move out of the US that are modded "insightful" is simple flamebait and does not help the questioner or add anything new to the discussion.
We get it, lefties. You don't like the US's health care system. Get over it. This guy is not going to move out of the USA simply because of health insurance.
Pfft. So in your view the whole world is 'left', and the US is 'centre' or something?
Are you really that stupid? because you sound like it.
The magical health-care fairies are TAXES you idiot.
Only a raging sociopath, or completely greedy asshole is against paying higher taxes to make sure everyone around him is in good health.
so which one are you?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
are often exactly the sort of lower middle class folk who would benefit immensely from socialized medicine
its like in the town hall meetings last summer, the old man who stands up and yells "keep your socialism away from my medicare"
it would be hilarious if it weren't so horribly tragic
i think it just boils down to incredible, horrible levels of high propaganda: the government is out to get you! the government is YOURS. it serves YOU. really
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In the US the insurance profits aren't actually all that much money. The real issue is that there is overhead EVERYWHERE.
Your doctor probably employs 1-2 people to do billing, because of the complexity of reimbursement. Your doctor nearly employs a lawyer as well with their malpractice premiums.
Your insurance company has 10x more people than it really needs - those don't count as profit, but they certainly bring cost.
Your hospital charges 10x what anything actually costs, because they have all the costs above and also have to provide "free" care to the indigent.
The tort and pay-for-service system guarantees that everybody is getting more treatment and especially more testing than they actually need.
Throw in another dozen issues similar to these and we can see why US health care is so expensive. Everybody likes to point at one thing and call it "the problem" but the whole system is one big mess. Most proposals to "fix" it amount to just shuffling money around so that people don't see the bills.
Truly deranged thinking is that paying twice as much (per capita) while covering half as many people as other countries is good healthcare and worth keeping.
The insurance companies hold all the cards.
Look at how the rates are climbing even as their profits are.
They are squeezing the last drop from your wallet because they know a single payer system is inevitable.
If you're going to be sick, you'd better not do it in the 'States. Its no place for you if you flinch at the thought of suing somebody who's only sin was being weak once (as we ALL are at least 15% of our lives.)
Other countries' health care systems may not be perfect but at least they exist.
The 'States have nothing even resembling a humane health care system.
What they have is health-don't-care systems.
Health care for profit is an oxymoron.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The doctors could even make house calls if you had a sick child. A wonderful system, and about half the cost of our monstrosity.
Think global, act loco
Liberty means death?
:-D
Brainwashed socialists
Only Americans, can, after cutting their taxes on the upper class thereby shifting the burden of society onto the lower and middle classes, and then giving the upper class big bonuses for almost destroying the country, only Americans can complain about socialism for the middle and lower classes.
Socialism for the upper class is entirely acceptable in their brainwashed "Liberty to die" culture.
Please, please, tell the Europeans about this. Our media try all the time to convince us that private is the best and socialised healthcare is crap.
People complain about our healthcare system all the time, they don't realise how worse it can be. The private corporations are taking over. We still have a solid healthcare system, but stuff like public-private contracts are rising, with disastrous financial consequences for the State, and loss of service quality. Now they're talking about giving the freedom to opt out of the public system, or choosing your private provider at the expenses of the State. If we don't stop this madness we'll be like the USA in a few years.
If you can't afford to help your countrymen get health care, how can you afford to fight multiple major wars and lower taxes at the same time?
The only problem with the Republican viewpoint on government spending is that it doesn't make any fucking sense.
I thought making profit was a corporations job, not the governments?
The government has no incentive to save money. There are no fat bonuses waiting for government employees who excel at saving money.
Now, if you were talking about a for-profit corporation, I'd see your point. They'd happily deny you coverage if they see the slightest chance of weaseling out of it just to improve their bottom line.
I hope your son carries a DNR on him, because that's what a responsible uninsured person would do.
Your son chooses not to carry insurance. If he has an accident, like say FRACTURING HIS ANKLE, and that fracture throws a bloodclot, which leaves him screaming in frantic pleading agony for a while before he passes out from the pain, then some spendthrift schmuck might call 911 and get him an ambulance.
Have you priced an ambulance ride followed by ER treatment lately? The last time one of MY INSURED and therefore RESPONSIBLE children ended up in the ER -- no ambulance ride mind you -- two hours of occassional treatment, a grand total of 10 minutes with a doctor, came to more than $3,000, paid for by my money.
But your clumsy, irresponsible blood-clot-throwin' welfare-queen son, just racked up at least 10, probably more like 20 grand of debt. You know what he's gonna do? He gonna declare bankruptcy and stiff that hospital on that bill, cause twenty-something kids who can't find a real job don't have 20 grand laying around. Then MY TAXES, MY MONEY are gonna get pulled in to cover the slack because your boy doesn't want to get up and go to work in the morning.
So, if he wants to redeem himself and stay responsible, he can at least carry a DNR rejecting care and demanding that the ER doc let him die screaming and solvent.
Wake the hell up, man. You're too old to keep buying this crap. Your twenty-year-old kid didn't wisely negotiate medical care with the hospital and force them to alter their billing practices. He was the recipient of some form of charity, but you're too thick-headed and vain to admit it to yourself.
And I'm glad he was. I'm glad he got the care he needed, and I don't mind that some of my taxes probably went to pay for it. I don't mind my taxes paying for your boy because one, I've got a working heart, and two, I understand the health of the herd affects my health too. A sick cow in a healthy herd will eventually make the whole herd sick, so I don't mind keeping your boy in good health, because in doing so I deny sickness a place to take hold in the herd I live in.
Let me put that in plainer terms for the benefit of the slow. If the busboy at your restaurant is sick, then you're about to be.
But hey, John, as someone right there beside you, let me tell you about your health. You ain't as young as you used to be, and you can feel it. You wake up slower in the morning, but you don't sleep as well. Stuff breaks, and it takes longer to fix. Trying to stay in shape gets harder and harder, and no matter how hard you work, you're still losing ground. You don't quite hear as well as you used to, but no one notices it yet. You ain't seeing quite as good, but you ain't gonna let on. You've had that scary moment when you couldn't quite catch your breath, even when you know you should have already.
We ain't even gonna talk about your prostate yet, are we? :-)
We're playing a good game, we got everyone fooled, but we get the scent in the wind. Dying ain't a theoretical possibility like it was when we was 17. Well, we think we got everyone fooled. Our wives know it. Well, mine does at least. Why do I get the feeling you're divorced?
Cancer. Heart attack. Diabetes. Stroke. That's what you and I got to look forward to John, and it's as scary as hell, looking down the barrel of words like that. Diapers and Dentures will eventually get us all.
Ain't it time we put down the macho bullshit and see if we can't take care of our kids yet? Two or three more decades, you and I are both gonna be gone, but our kids will still be here. Ain't it time we find a way to give them the same level of care we'd give to THE DAMN ANIMALS IN THE BARN?!
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."