I am in the middle of creating a blog about fulltiming with fibromyalgia and other chronic health conditions and would like your opinions on how the new health care bill is affecting you or will affect you good and/or bad. 

 

A huge complaint that I have seen lately by the "haves" is the fact that all employer paid health insurance will now be taxed.....fair or not?

Personally, I think the more folks have to feel the costs of health care, the better it is all around. So many folks are shielded from the costs, never really seeing or having to directly pay for their coverage - it's just something that comes with their employment contract.  Thus, they are not as informed and enabled to make balanced decisions about their health care.  And .. on a larger scale, they're not as motivated to stand up for the huge changes that need to happen. 

Thanks Cherie...BTW, I just signed up for updates from your website/blog....you are my idol! LOL...here is a post from my fibro blog with actual costs for Blue Cross/Blue Shield Georgia....we looked into small business insurance as we do have one and the costs were actually a bit less as was the deductible. How can it be that a larger group policy costs more?

So to put it into real numbers here is what it would cost us to get insurance from the company.

 

 

$714.18 x 12 = $8,570.16 Yearly Premium

 

$9,000 Deductible

 

$17,570.16 Total Baseline Out of Pocket

 

$9,000 Maximum Out of Pocket From 80/20 Coinsurance

 

$26, 570.16 Total Out of Pocket Until Insurance Covers 100%

I think your blog idea sounds great and will inspire others to get on the road despite chronic health conditions.

As for us, we've been self-employed for over 12 years now. We've always bought our own individual coverage (sucks) and just this month had to raise our deductible to $11,900, because our rates just got jacked up again.

What does the health care bill mean to us as it is now? Other than the fact that we can't be denied coverage for pre-existing coverage, that's about all we get out of it (not that we would take any chances and leave our current plan anyhow...too risky). Oh, and the no more lifetime cap on coverage.

The original health care bill, which promised universal coverage, would have been something that we would have taken advantage of. Sadly, when that got dropped I lost interest in the bill because it really doesn't do a whole lot for the self-employed as far as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong).

Like LWD, I lost interest in the bill once it lost most of it's meat. Unfortunately, that's what happens when you have partisan politicians arguing - the real meaning of stuff gets lost.

While I am not self-employed, I am "small employed" by a very small family business (my family members own the business - I am an employee). I know what it is costing me every month for my totally weak health care insurance - with a $10k deductible. I imagine it is good if my head gets lopped off or something, but that is about it.

However, I have been an independent worker for almost 15 years, and I see it as a price to pay to NOT be an employee of a large company. Part of being a cog in that big machine is benefits - healthcare, vacation time, sick time, matching 401k dollars, stock, etc. I chose to NOT go that route, but rather get paid a little more than normal cog-style employees to cover that all myself.

While I bet that most people have no idea what their benefit package is worth, I do know that it is worth it to me, as an independent, to not have those things "given" to me. But, I also don't have a cap on what I can earn. I don't have someone telling me when to show up at the office. I don't have anyone telling me what to wear, or what not to wear, or where to live. I don't have anyone steering my future except for myself.

So, that is the price I pay for paying huge premiums for healthcare, I imagine. To me,  the price is totally worth of my freedom.


--kev

I have low-income insurance and it's 25% of my monthly income- and if I increase my income more than 10%, I'll lose my insurance, which is a terrible catch 22 to be stuck in.

Dogstar

 

I feel your pain...for the last year we have had BadgerCare from the state of Wisconsin because of my two conditions and the fact that I can't work much with the fibro....granted it was only good when we were in Wisconsin which has been a total of 5 days since last October....come August 31 we will lose that as with Bill's new job we are $600 per month over the income limit...the hardest part of the costs I think are the people with a chronic condition who are not dirt poor but have costs every month due to the conditions....I know that my hydrocodone will go up from a $8 co pay to about $70 or so as I take 8 a day....at that's from Walmart....I can't do mail order as it is a narcotic....

We lost our insurance once we went on the road/switched jobs. If we stay with the company that DH is currently employed with we will have insurance again in October. Except for DH who is a cancer survivor and DD who had an autoimmune disease.