It seems to be a great time to be a nurse right now. All of the opportunities presented seem endless!
But why does it seem like employers do not want to offer decent health insurance AND decent pay?
I just left a job that basically had no insurance. There was a $9,000 annual deductible that had to be paid before insurance even kicked in. The monthly premium for a single mom with kids was $200. I stayed at the job for 7 months. Now, I started a new job. I was on orientation yesterday and the monthly premium for a mom with children for Aetna HMO 40 Choice plan is $975 and $105 for dental. Since I will get paid every two weeks, that is $500 every paycheck.
Meanwhile, my sister in IT pays $200 a month for PPO, and that is as a single parent with children.
Did any of this story ever get leaked to the media?
There's a special place in hell for management like this...
You know Jedrnurse it really only just now occurred to me that despite how incredibly unfair and heartless this this situation was we just kind of accepted it. Completely unacceptable now that I think about it.
I have the good fortune to be covered by my spouses plan (private sector, non health care) which is a fraction of the price with light years better coverage than was being offered to me by the very hospital that provided the care paid for by my spouses plan. The "plans" that hospitals offer nurses are so unaffordable they verge on predatory.
I had a friend / co- worker when I worked at St Heartless who found out the hard way how poor our facility health care was. RN left shift and went to ER with serve abdominal pain, after staggering through most of her shift of course, can't abandon her patients. She was diagnosed with appendicitis and operated on the same day.
Despite being seen in the ER of our own hospital for emergency surgery the surgeon was not in network nor were the anesthesia providers. After discharge she received the staggering bill for "electing" to be treated outside of network. To add insult to injury the hospital refused to reduced the bill in any way or allow her to make a payment plan. They sent her bill to collections immediately when she couldn't afford to pay in full.
......Payroll did work with the collections agency to allow them to garnish her wages to recover the debt so that was helpful of them.
Haha, I think I worked for the same hospital system! I was a long time employee and had a small outstanding balance because I was waiting for additional insurance reimbursement on a medical claim. Even though it was for a few months only and I communicated this information promptly, the Accounts Receivable Department still quickly moved to submit my claim to collections. Wow
Children are more liabilities than assets and it is the price one pays for procreating. The more variables one adds to their life, the more those in control can fill in those variables with constants.
Not complicating my life with excessive variables is one of the many reasons I had a vasectomy before I got married the first time.
Children are more liabilities than assets and it is the price one pays for procreating. The more variables one adds to their life, the more those in control can fill in those variables with constants.
Not complicating my life with excessive variables is one of the many reasons I had a vasectomy before I got married the first time.
Just wow! I usually love your posts but this seems to blame procreation for unfair health coverage rather than the horrible system. Why nurses get despicable healthcare
coverage is beyond my understanding. So is your post.
That's been an issue for me as well. It's a big part of the reason I left my former employer and made the change I did. My old insurance for just myself and my husband was $500/month premiums with a $6000 deductible per person for just medical. The vision was reasonably cheap and dental was mid--priced for so-so coverage. I can't remember the out of pocket max for the medical but I do remember it was outrageously high. So it was basically a boatload of money for insurance we would never even use unless something truly catastrophic happened.
My new insurance is under $300/month for all my policies including medical, dental and vision with the medical being a hair under $200 of that. Our deductible is $6000 with an out of pocket max of $13500. The catastrophic did happen as my husband required transplant surgery last year. The insurance paid out all claims promptly and so far our total out of pocket bill has been $165.00. I've been waiting for the big bills from the transplant hospital and haven't seen one yet and it's been almost 6 months since surgery. Weird but I am sure not complaining
Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
I could debate posts that challenge my premises; however, the debate would be boring and predictable. And if there's anything I do not want to be is boring and predictable.
John McNichols said something along the lines of "Artists have an important role in any society and that's to show us alternative perspectives to the accepted mainstream ways in which we think... for this reason we afford the artist latitude in their irreverent perspectives".
Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.
It's not only in the healthcare system these days, I came to nursing from a pharmaceutical research company and the benefits there had definitely declined over the years. I feel for all of you dealing with ridiculous healthcare costs!
I just recently took a job with state benefits. While the pay is not what I might have made if I stayed in some of the larger health systems, the medical and dental coverage along with the retirement benefits will more than make up for making less money. Last year we paid just under the $8000 out of pocket max (before the state job). I almost wanted someone to have something happen that would cost over $200 in December, just so I could get something for free. It's sad that so many people have jobs that do not provide for reasonable health care options.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
1 hour ago, Davey Do said:
I could debate posts that challenge my premises; however, the debate would be boring and predictable. And if there's anything I do not want to be is boring and predictable.
John McNichols said something along the lines of "Artists have an important role in any society and that's to show us alternative perspectives to the accepted mainstream ways in which we think... for this reason we afford the artist latitude in their irreverent perspectives".
OK I see what you're saying. But it still does not justify your premise that having children deservedly nets a person who works in healthcare crappy insurance.
To add insult to injury the hospital refused to reduced the bill in any way or allow her to make a payment plan. They sent her bill to collections immediately when she couldn't afford to pay in full.
......Payroll did work with the collections agency to allow them to garnish her wages to recover the debt so that was helpful of them.
The irony is that the hospital sells those debts to collection agencies for pennies on the dollar. By the time that your friend ended up in collections the hospital no longer owned the debt, they had cleared the slate. They couldn't reduce the debt because the collection agency owned it. So the hospital was fulfilling its obligations to the collection agency by garnishing an employee's wages in order to service their own agreement with the collection agency. As a favor....
The irony is that the hospital sells those debts to collection agencies for pennies on the dollar. By the time that your friend ended up in collections the hospital no longer owned the debt, they had cleared the slate. They couldn't reduce the debt because the collection agency owned it. So the hospital was fulfilling its obligations to the collection agency by garnishing an employee's wages in order to service their own agreement with the collection agency. As a favor....
PoodleBreath I was being sarcastic. I'm well aware they took pennies on the dollar from a debt collection agency when they refused to accept even a payment plan their own employee, who had sought care in their own hospital in good faith as the hospital was in net work (just not the doctor's who happened to be on shift that day). My friend was left with a large debt and a destroyed credit rating.
Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
14 hours ago, SmilingBluEyes said:
OK I see what you're saying. But it still does not justify your premise that having children deservedly nets a person who works in healthcare crappy insurance.
With all due respect, SBE, that is not my premise. It is your interpretation of my premise.
There have been at least three fallacies in logic by members who disagree with my premise, not to mention words and phrases used that would not be considered appropriate or useful in a polite debate.
Very few members on this website know and/or use the rules of polite societal debate. That's one reason why I will not get into a debate on this website.
I will state my premise, some disagree and use unsavory tacts to lure me into a debate, and I go about my business because I don't have a need to prove myself to anybody.
However, should anyone desire to learn some basic rules of debate, see- and study- the movie "The Great Debaters". The movie is, truly, a masterpiece.
This is just a symptom of a terminally ill healthcare system. The current status is not sustainable but will likely not get fixed anytime soon since opponents of reform only need to shout socialism to frighten millions of people into clinging to this system.
kp2016
522 Posts
You know Jedrnurse it really only just now occurred to me that despite how incredibly unfair and heartless this this situation was we just kind of accepted it. Completely unacceptable now that I think about it.
I have the good fortune to be covered by my spouses plan (private sector, non health care) which is a fraction of the price with light years better coverage than was being offered to me by the very hospital that provided the care paid for by my spouses plan. The "plans" that hospitals offer nurses are so unaffordable they verge on predatory.