Last year when we were in a battle for the election I fought hard for then candidate Obama -his platform resonated with me although much of it was ideology and a bit abstract to me. I wanted to see so much change, but not much affected me directly. I fought to get us out of the war in Iraq, to end torture, for Health Care Reform and for Energy and Environmental issues to name a few.
That was last year...this year, I just gotten a grasp on our financials and it dawns on me that our family is the definition of under-insured.
I know we are one illness away from bankruptcy and everything we worked so hard for is falling out of reach. Our kids 3rd birthday is coming up and we are combing thrift ads for gifts. And through all of this, I hesitate to post because I know we are so much better off than most.
My husband and I are well educated professionals. We both have masters degrees and we both have good jobs with small consulting firms. In addition to masters degrees, we are both licensed professionals in our fields -working for a small business. We chose small business because the opportunity for more varied experience was better and because we felt we could be part of the company itself, intimately involved in major decisions.
We worked hard, saved our money and had a nice nest egg of $40,000 in the bank. We live frugally, buying used clothes for our kids and are currently driving a 1997 sedan. Again, I hesitate to write this because I know that there are so many that have no jobs and no insurance, so many that have had to deal with medical bankruptcy. We are lucky and we know it, but it doesn't change the fact that we are under-insured and we are being forced to make some really tough choices.
With our savings in the bank we thought we were in a good place to have kids. We had been married for 5 years and we saved up our money and were convinced the time was right for us to share our love and gifts and grow our family. We tried but couldn't have kids naturally. We went through a barrage of testing that was not covered by insurance - $5,000 or so. Then we decided to pursue IVF after looking into adoption because we qualified for a study -but it was still $10,000.
Well we got pregnant with twins and even though we had a relatively uneventful pregnancy, chose a mid-wife, and our babies needed no NICU time, and I was discharged from the hospital early, we still paid $12,000 to bring home our babies. Let me say that again -two fully employed professionals with insurance had $12,000 in medical bills after giving birth to two healthy babies.
So much for the out of pocket maximum that reads so nicely on the insurance card. My co-worker that was pregnant at the same time had a daughter 3 months later and paid $500 out of pocket because she was on her husband's insurance -he works for the government. I have friends on medicare that pay NOTHING.
Then of course there is maternity leave. I didn't have any vacation time left and being a small business we don't get paid maternity leave. I took 3 months off thinking we had the $$$ to do that. Well that got us down to less than $10,000 in a hurry. I went back to work with a flexible schedule (but most day-cares don't really accommodate that) so we pay full-time daycare -while I am drawing a 75% salary. I consider ourselves lucky that i can do that.
Our twins are now rambunctious 3 year olds and we've had some fun lately. A couple of bad falls and we have had 3 visits to the ER this year. Each requiring us to pay $1000 deductible and 20% above that -so we are just about out of our savings.
As part of the management team in my small business we are all shown the premiums, we have watched as the company pays more and more and we employees get less and less. I watched as my boss of 12 years had to come into the meeting and say that we can't fully cover employee premiums anymore and that we would be asked to help cover our own medical benefits. We have watched our coverage dwindle to nothing. 3 years ago I had an ER visit and paid $250, now, even though our premiums have gone up just so we can "maintain coverage" -now we pay $1000 + 20% for ER visits.
Yesterday I was at my GP and they told me I owed a balance because my last visit was about some anxiety issues that I have and that is no longer covered at the same rate -now mental health issues are covered at 30% so I had to pony up another $35 on top of my $30 copay for my visit last month.
My husband continues to look for a job with better benefits because we can not afford to work for a small business anymore. I am looking for a second job that I can do after the kids have had their dinner and are in bed. This is not what I expected from a household with an engineer and a geoscientist. We are simply under-insured. It is that simple.
We are now faced with paying our bills very slowly, having me return to work full time (although I am not sure I can find a job at the moment) or cutting out our 401K contributions. Medical bills have destroyed our savings.
And like I said in the beginning -we give thanks for so much every day because we are the lucky ones.