Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Some Ranks I'd Rather NOT Join

I received a letter that made my heart drop into my stomach today. Our health insurance premiums will go up 15%. It is stinky to pay for private insurance. If you combine that with the supplemental insurance that we pay for (to cover hospitalization) we spend 23% of my husband's gross monthly income on health insurance. This amount is not much less than our house payment. We have no dental coverage (we do have a discount plan), no vision insurance, and our plan covers no chiropractic. And our deductible is $1500 per family. I don't know if we can afford to have health insurance at these rates! And, after looking around they are comprable if not um,(I'm not sure I dare say it...) good.
I don't want a National Health care plan. I don't feel that I am "entitled" to an insurance plan that pays 100%. I do want to be able to afford health care. There are many scenarios and they all seem to turn out against us. If we keep paying the ever increasing premiums, we are secure in the adequate coverage we have but have less money in our budget. If we cancel this and find another company, we will possible need to find all new doctors that accept the new insurance. If I find a job that gives benefits we have to put R in daycare.* If we cancel and have no coverage then we run the risk of having an illness/accident/emergency that requires medical attention and serious bills/bankruptcy. One of the things I am always scared of is having something happen that would render us "uninsurable" or give cause for a higher deductible because of pre-existing conditions.
I do put a chunk of blame on illegal immigrants. There is such an epidemic of people who are unable to pay using the emergency rooms as their primary care facilities. This has to put a strain on the systems.
I want to have more children, but this could change our plans for when. I want to keep the same wonderful doctors I have searched for who now know our family and histories but at what cost?


*NOT AN OPTION

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