Insurance - The Latest Outrage

Nurses General Nursing

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It's time to choose insurance for next year, as you likely know. Where I work, we have 4 categories of worker:

Worker Only - about $30 per month for medical and Rx

Worker and Spouse - about $180

Worker and Child(ren) - about $53

Worker, Spouse, and - about $310

Children

So married people get seriously punished for being married.

What do you think of this?

I think it is sad that the healthcare industry doesn't care for their own. I am a career changer, worked in IT and paid half of what I pay for insurance and had no deductible. My new career as a nurse, I have a $3500 deductible + plus copays. It is robbery and then you cannot even negotiate your salary- new nurses start with a set rate. It is disgusting.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

consider this too, if your spouse has insurance thru employer then that insurance will be the primary and yours would only pick up after that, and at a smaller percentage. Contracts vary of course but you need to know. Your insurer is trying to hedge bets that the reason you want your spouse on your plan is because he/she is ill and cannot work full time. Not true all the time, just enough of the time to make the plan go broke if there are too many such cases

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$900.00 a month for the "family" plan. Doesn't matter if I'm married or single, or have one child or a dozen. And of course, being a nurse, I've had chronic back pain for years, won't cover anything related to that because it's pre-existing. Otherwise my family is pretty healthy.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

I don't know why RNgrrl09 thinks of health insurance and health providers being in the same business. They are there to make a profit, not be a benevolence fund. Same as me. I do not work for charity.

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Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.

There is a difference between profit and greed. I doubt that few living in this country have a problem with capitalist ideals of reasonable pay for work. There is, however, an increasing distaste for greed becoming the primary motivation in some industries. This is particularly troubling for people (including myself) when the industry is healthcare. And yes, I do consider health insurance providers part of the healthcare system. Afterall, for too many people, the quality and cost of their insurance directly affects the access to and quality of their healthcare.

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Specializes in MS, ED.

Things could be worse. After being laid off this past spring, I opted to pay for ongoing COBRA coverage with United Healthcare. I received a letter a week ago advising that the upcoming open enrollment period will feature a change to a new plan with a new company...

and instead of managed care, it will now be medical indemnity only.

So, under the auspice of 'more affordable care for everyone', I'm going to have to pay $100 more each month for a basically non-existent reimbursement coverage plan.

I would rather continue to pay out of pocket for managed care than to be provided with less coverage for more money! I have no choice but to now purchase a private policy, which (unbelievably) costs nearly the same as this sham coverage being offered.

I'm waiting to see if my state addresses the shortfalls of this type of coverage, (as Washington has, with the emergence of a class action lawsuit), but I'm doubtful.

Regards,

Southern

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Specializes in Going to Peds!.

I am so grateful for my husband's insurance through his employer. His premium is 100% paid for by them. The "family" coverage, which includes spouse and any/all children, is $69.24 per month for medical. The dental rider is $9.24 per month. Our RXs are $5/10/16 co-pays depending on whether or not it is an older, cheap generic, a new drug or a non-preferred brand name. My son's Xopenex is one of the $16 drugs. So is his Prevacid Solu-tab. He's almost 8, so we're gonna switch him to something he can swallow that will come from the $5 list of stuff. Our OV or Urgent Care co-pays are $30. The ER costs us $100.

Reading everyone else's insurance woes just makes me really grateful for our insurance. I used to whine and complain about it until I saw what the hospital wanted to charge me for insurance. A family insurance plan costs $300 per month through my hospital employer. You would think hospitals would be able to offer their employees a "cream of the crop" plan like my husband's employer offers. Kinda sad, isn't it?

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Things could be worse. After being laid off this past spring,

Read this and see if it applies to your situation. It could save you tons of money if it does.

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2032-Job-Info-and-Trends-Laid-Off-You-May-Qualify-for-COBRA-Discount/?pf=true&ArticleID=2032&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=44f0f8c514a4489fa8a747a1449de2a4-308927166-RL-4

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Specializes in MS, ED.

Thank you Batman for posting this; Though I was aware of it, (ten years+ in finance/insurance), I'm sure others are not.

My issue is much less about the money - I have two p/t jobs now and will pay out of pocket for my own coverage - but I'm appalled that under this notion of 'coverage for everyone' that the actual coverage I'm being forced to accept after open enrollment is watered down and cost inflated.

With medical indemnity, you don't have a network or preferred providers/facilities. When you obtain health care services, you are (a) billed at the point of service and pay the full amount directly before seeking reimbursement from your carrier and (b) are responsible for the balance of the bill not paid by the indemnity carrier. Since physicians and facilities do not have contracts within this type of care to provide services for specific reimbursements, the cost is much higher and to boot...

the company pays very little. $1000 maximum toward emergent surgery, for example. $300 toward an ER visit. No prescription drug coverage. No eye exams. Vague EOBs and underwriting guidelines. More services are available, of course - if you're willing to pay as much or more than you would for a regular policy covering all those things anyhow, with a lower deductible! *sigh

This is 'cost-controlled' health insurance, and it is very scary what is happening with this. It is just as expensive as buying a private, managed care policy which *does* offer health coverage. Sure - you have no pre-existing conditions, no networks, no restriction on who you can see or where you can go with indemnity...

but there is no coverage! :angryfire

Best,

Southern

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
It's time to choose insurance for next year, as you likely know. Where I work, we have 4 categories of worker:

Worker Only - about $30 per month for medical and Rx

Worker and Spouse - about $180

Worker and Child(ren) - about $53

Worker, Spouse, and - about $310

Children

So married people get seriously punished for being married.

What do you think of this?

The "punishment" is your employer *strongly encouraging* you to look elsewhere (such as the spouse's employer) for your spouse's coverage.

The case for changing our mindset to separate employment from health coverage grows by the day ...

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I don't know why RNgrrl09 thinks of health insurance and health providers being in the same business. They are there to make a profit, not be a benevolence fund. Same as me. I do not work for charity.

I was not saying that health insurance and health providers were in the same business. I was stating that as health providers, we do provide adequate coverage for employees. As an employee in the Chemical and IT industries, my employer provider insurance covered everything- in the chemical industry with no deductible to be paid out and not paying out of pocket (employer paid for insurance) and in the IT field, with my employer provided insurance I had a copay but no deductible. In both industries, I was able to negotiate a wage and other benefits. In the healthcare industry- nursing, I could not negotiate my wage, being a new nurse grad I had to accept the wage being offered, whether or not I took the benefit of healthcare or not. Yes, it is sad that being a provider of healthcare, health coverage is not a priority and being part of the healthcare industry we know how important insurance is to the access of healthcare and maintaining our health. If you are in the healthcare field you are working for charity if you cannot negotiate a living wage. I don't consider paying out- someone stated that they paid out $900 a month for healthcare compared to $90 - $120 a month in the other industries and not receiving the same level of care. I don't wish to work for charity.

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Oooohh I want your insurance!

I work a job that pays a few dollars above minimum wage, and our premiums are higher than yours. My lifetime maximum is $250,000!! How scary!! My insurance also denied my request to cover birth control for medical reasons (guess they'd rather pay for a hystorectomy!) and I have to fight with them every single time I get my antidepressants filled because they think there is a generic available (there isn't).

And my HR lady is surprised that I'm dropping my coverage this year...

To be fair, my vision insurance doesn't suck, so there is that.

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