Families held hostage by health-care costs

[antigop]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2003948637_schip14.html

Single parent Donna Johnson, an office manager for a private school near Baltimore, lives on $42,000 a year and counts herself lucky that she doesn't have to work two jobs to afford health insurance for her children.

The reason, she says, is that for $57 a month, Maryland allows her to enroll her son Evens Cross, 12, and daughter Josie Cross, 9, in the state's version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, which accepts families earning as much as three times the poverty level: $51,510 for a family of three.

That's a lot cheaper than adding the kids to her individual HMO policy, which she said would jack up her monthly $200 premium to $500 or more.

[Crazy Dave]

1. My guess would be more than that

Once my wife and I were quoted $600 a month just for the two of us. And thats only if we stayed healthy. Then comes high deductibles and high prescription prices on top of the premiums.

[Lorien]

6. Ah yes, but Universal Health Care would mean higher taxes!

:eyes:

I hear you. I'm self employed an can only afford $265.00 a month for health insurance. I've got a huge deductible, only a small discount on meds, and many procedures aren't covered at all. My former insurance policy with NASE never paid for a single claim and I ended up $32,000 in debt due to a needed surgery. I later found out through an episode of NOW on PBS that they rarely paid a claim for ANY policy holders. If we had universal health care how much more per month would I be paying in taxes? Would it be less than $585.00? That's about what I'm paying for insurance and medical debt right now!

Welcome to America: stay healthy, get rich, or die.

[Crazy Dave]

11. It's a fact. You'd pay less in taxes than you do in premiums...

...and deductibles, prescriptions and what the insurance company won't pay for. It's like spending an extra dollar just to save a dime, worrying about tax increases.

[haele]

13. I hear ya. For-Profit Health costs are killing the middle class -

Sure, they seem okay until there's a chronic medical problem in your family. Then you get nickeled and dimed to death.

F'rinstance, on top of the rather reasonable $389 a month I pay for my employer provided health care, we spend another $800 or so a month on prescriptions and the cluster of 4 - 6 monthly doctor/therapist visits for my physically disabled husband and the kid who has some severe emotional issues. That's not counting the rapidly overtaking $5K in "emergency", rehabilitation, dental, vision and lab bills for all those services where the insurance company only pays 60 - 80% - which come to another $400 a month that gets paid as we can afford - and sometimes, they don't get paid for a month or two because it's either pay a utility bill or come up with enough money to pay a $250 lab procedure bill the doctor wanted because she felt "lumps" where there shouldn't have been some.
So a good third to almost half of the monthly family income goes to health care costs. And of course, WE MAKE TOO MUCH TO QUALIFY FOR ASSISTANCE!
Even though because of the health care costs, we've got less to spend after the critical bills than we did when I was making $11 an hour working as a project manager's assistant between contracts four years ago - which was considered just above poverty level then. And I'm making more than twice that now. Sigh.

With rent and utilities going up, there are some months there isn't even enough left for things like thrift store visits for the growing kid's clothes or her bus pass so she can get around to school/activities/out with friends and back. Let alone enough money for healthy food. Or critical repairs on our one paid for vehicle. And we've got a "solid middle class income" - with the same income 7 years ago, we would have easily been able to qualify for a reasonable $150K house with no money down on a VA loan and had a fixed mortgage a good $200 less than we're paying for rent right now!
The stress is killing me; I can't work any harder than I am now to keep up with the bills, the DH is trying to get "work from home" to supplement his SSDI to help, but that's not going very far because there are too many days he can't get out of bed because of the pain, the kid is acting out because she can't cope with the least disappointment or distress in her life without being destructive or self-mutilating, which is why we're spending at least $300 a month on her therapy and her doctors (...thanks, kidlet's equally self-destructive mom who finally gave custody to her dad after the money wasn't worth it any more...) - Argh. It never stops, it just keeps spiraling down - and pretty soon, my health will begin to suffer as well because of the stress.

Even raising taxes the same amount as my premium to provide single-payer health care, if I can have a more reasonable co-pay and prescription costs, it could be a good $300 - $500 less a month than I'm paying now. And perhaps, will also benefit our family health as well as the family pocketbook.


Haele

[wilt the stilt]

2. Bait and switch

actually, that probably is the first year. Wait until renewal time. It is so sorry sucker. Now that you have gone 1 year and all previously non covered issues(preexisting conditions are now covered) here is your new rate. Once an insurance company starts to cover preexisting conditions they have you. No one can wait another year to be covered again. wait is particularly galling is the fact that you may have been covered for 20 years with a company policy with no gaps and once you get your own insurance you are screwed.

[Wcross]

3. So to free these "hostages" the government will tax poor smokers.

I agree with the need to assist families with health insurance. We ALL need to pay for it though.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

4. I agree that all people should pay for this program but smokers

seem to forget, ignore, overlook that the ONLY reason the bill was written for the program to be paid for by cigarette taxes is that is the ONLY way the rethuglicans would accept it. The rethugs made it part and parcel of the deal - no cigarette tax, no vote. So if you are pissed off at the funding you need to start calling all of the rethugs and ask for their reasoning for their insistence in the mode of funding.

Personally I think it was just a means to vote for a very popular program but give them wiggle room to claim that the program is taxing the people who can least afford. They have already come out with the smoking rates will go down because of the tax (isn't that a good thing?) so the program will not be funded properly and then they segue right into we have to "encourage" people to smoke so they will have health insurance.

Let everybody pay is just fine and dandy with me, but ya better get the rethuglicans on board, too. That whole cigarette tax paying for the program is just all smoke and mirrors from the group who do not give a damn about little kids, their health or their families.

*Edit - Out, out damn typos!

[TahitiNut]

5. "The devil made me do it!"

I've heard that too many times to buy it.

[Romulox]

7. Agree 100%, and I will go one step further: we need to stop nibbling around the edges

And implement single payer healthcare for ALL. Not just children. Not just immigrants, and not just the elderly.

Either we're all Americans with equal value, or its every man for himself. Right now, many want to have it both ways.

[Lorien]

8. Any incentive to quit is good IMHO

if someone is poor, then wasting their money on an unhealthy habit seems unwise, especially when that habit could cost them their life-or at the very least their life savings if they become ill.

[Romulox]

9. Don't you see? These programs are predicated on people *NOT* quitting...

Or else there would be no funding for the program! Just like a drug dealer, the idea is to raise the price *just enough* that the addict can maintain his addiction. That's how dope pushers make their $$$.

[Wcross]

10. So everyone quits and we fund the program how? n/t

[youthere]

12. Family of 5...$450 a month premium for health insurance...

and that's on top of the huge deductible ($1000) we have to pay, PLUS, the insurance company keeps raising our co-pays and decreasing the meds and procedures it will cover.
We can't afford to go to the doctor when we're sick because we a broke from paying for the health insurance...but we can't drop it because God forbid we had a major illness or accident...It would ruin us.

[antigop]

14. is that for a private plan or a company-sponsored group plan? n/t

[youthere]

15. Company sponsored group plan.

Private plan would cost us more.

[antigop]

16. thank you. I shudder to think what a private plan would cost. n/t

[youthere]

17. me too..

:scared: This is me. shuddering.