how would you feel if one of your own(a nurse) didnt have insurance?

[smartnurse1982]

Ii never go to this side of allnurses but want an opinion. I make 680 a week after taxes (take home pay )but agency wants 250 per week for healthcare. I can't afford that,and feel taken advantage of. I work 40 hours a week. I didn't take the insurance,but recently I got sick and had to pay 250 to go the doctor. The county clinic has a three month backlog,meaning they don't have emergency appointments and the appointment was going to be three mponths later. I got quotes online but they wanted 500 a month,but the catch was a 10,000 deductable. Don't qualify for medicaid,don't drive an expensive car or have an expensive home. I also just can't get another job,b/c there are none. I have no pre existing conditions. The point of the post? To refute a lot of claims that I see people writing,such as "a lot of people could purchase insurance but rather not" or chppse to not get it feom their jobs. At those prices,who can afford that? True,the poor can get medicaid,what about the middle class? As the current system is,should I just hold off and hope for the best? Oh, I am still trying to find that hosp that will treat me for free,which is a joke. I often hear proponents of the bill state you could just walk in the hosp and be treated.how so?you still get one huge bill,don't you?

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

Uninsured nurses are pretty common at my job. My job offer CIGNA, which is evil incarnate. I pay $400 a month for 2 people, with a $2400 deductible and 80% coverage after that. We have no prescription drug coverage, and I have to fight them every step of the way to pay for things.

I've thought of dropping our health insurance. If CIGNA doesn't want to pay for things, I can save the $400 a month and negotiate with providers directly. Unfortunately, not many doctors here will see uninsured patients. Basically, I pay $400 a month to argue.

As far as just walking into a hospital, you can't be turned away at the emergency room, thanks to EMTALA, but you wait hours to be seen, and you get a whopping big bill down the road. Hopsitals are usually wiilling to negotiate bills based on income, but you have to be destitute to get free health care.

[nursel56]

Lots of nurses I know don't have insurance, including me. If I paid those premiums, I would be sleeping under a park bench. It would probably be even higher than that for me, smartnurse1982.

We're not poor enough to be on Medi-caid, don't make enough to pay for employer based health insurance. What happens is that nurses are uninsured, if there is a catastrophic illness they can kiss their house goodbye, get their credit rating shot to helL, have to file for bankrupcy, and pay for their medical expenses by holding church fundraisers and bake sales.

Afer all that, I guess they will be able to qualify for Medi-caid. They will have no assets, no retirement fund, no nothing. I pray to God they will do something about this in Washington but I'm not very hopeful at this point.

[tewdles, RN]

My husband and I (both nurses) had no insurance for a spell. Then we paid through the nose for a policy...and when my dh got sick and actually NEEDED the insurance we paid for the insurance company refused to pay...we ended up $100K in debt to a university hospital which wouldn't accept our negotiation and sued us to get the money.

If you continue to make this choice you will be accused of poor personal planning and no personal responsibility. Your planning (in the minds of those folks) MUST include health insurance premiums...even if it means you cannot afford insurance for your car or boots for your kids.

You consider how this is a functional system when you, a middle class college educated person working full time, cannot afford to pay premiums for a service which has scores of multimillion dollar salaries to pay. That service industry keeps raising their salaries and bonuses, decreasing their coverage algorthyms, and increasing their rates. And the politicians keep shouting that the American people don't want reform...REALLY?

The politicians may not need reform...but the American middle class needs this reform and we need it sooner rather than later.

[smartnurse1982]

Wow,I didn't know it was common for nurses to not have insurance,so at least I'm not alone. But I take issues like this very serious b/c at one time I was thinking to myself"what did I do wrong"? I thought I did everything the right way by going to school,grad at 22 from nursing school,u know realizing the american dream? Some idiots in congress make it seem our system is not broken,when it is. Others make it seem like "a bunch of freeloaders" are going to abuse the system,and my favorite,(which I actually seen a thread on this forum) about the free clinics that treat everyone with open arms. To be honest,I wouldn't had mind seeing companies get taxed extra for not providing health insurance to its employees,b/c I believe if a company could get away with with not providing anything,they would,since most are doing it anyway. For an employer of healthcare workers ,it should be criminal not to offer affordable insurance. We take care of sick people,yet if we catch something from working,we are on our own. Maybe us uninsured health care workers should march in `washington,so people would realize its not just the poor that's suffering.

[RN1980]

you have got to get some insurance..you are playing with fire if you dont. i feel your pain..the middle class is always the ones who get stuck in the gray areas of all sorts of situations. we make just to much to get anytype of assistance and not enough to make ends meet comfortably but yet we support everyone else but ourselves.

[nursel56]

I'm not making a political debate about this at all and I know there are problems with it like anything else, but if ALL nurses were in a union we wouldn't be trampled on like we are now, and it isn't just health care. I've always leaned Republican, but what I read now about how nurses are treated sickens me. I started out in this field in school in 1975, got my license in 1976.

I can tell you with 100% assurance our benefits have tankied big time. The idea that an RN working full time would pay $1000 per month (a young person, too!) in premiums wouldn't even have been contemplated. Now I'm really dragging my heels about advancing further into the nursing field.

I realize it's a bad idea not to have insurance, but. . . reality is what it is. My kids were always covered because there are more options in my state for them and my 20 yr old daughter gets healthcare at her college. My son had decent insurance when he worked at a grocery store, because of their union, even though he now had to wait a year for it to kick in.

Sorry if I sound too angry but I know what things were like before, and I know what they are like now. I left the field and re-entered, so it has been somewhat of a culture shock to see what is happening now.

[caliotter3]

When I got hauled off to the hospital by ambulance, a nice bill came in the mail. The ambulance company got their bill to me faster than the hospital, efficiency I suppose. This would not have happened to me if I had insurance to begin with, and had not been avoiding medical care because I couldn't pay for it.

[StNeotser, ASN, RN]

Seems like enough of our own don't have insurance. I have insurance for myself free from my employer, though I have a $35 copay for routine MD visits, $100 for urgent care.

My employer is now pretty much passing all of the cost for insurance for family members onto the employee. For me to insure one fifteen year old girl with only a hx of acne would cost me about $475 per month with them. Of course the policy is for employee and children, so if I had four kids it might be worth it. I bought a similar policy for $155 per month through a broker. I am scared if anything really happens, because the insurance policy was individually purchased they will find any reason at all to cancel it.