and afford healthcare at the same time when you have a chronic condition. Is there any freaking way to keep medical bills in check when you have a chronic condition ? Even with decent insurance the bills are outrageous. How can a family making just over 30 grand a year afford it? The answer it seems is they can't.
Yep that is 100% correct. You can't afford to have a chronic condition unless you make more money. Even then it hurts your budget. You have to scrimp and save where you can. If you are in the same income bracket I am you are just S.O.L., too bad. I was brought up to work hard, pay your bills and be productive in society. I live with chronic pain but continue to work. I would love to go on disability but just can not afford to do it. It's hard to live on less than $1000.00 a month and that is what disability would pay. Then there is the 2 year waiting period for Medicare so I would see 2 years of trying to get by on what is left of my monthly check after paying for insurance.
It might be better now with the ACA and the expansion of medicaid here in Kentucky but three years ago when I had my surgery it wasn't an option. So I suffer every day at work. I work hard at my job and think I am pretty good at it. I work for one of the largest insurance companies in the nation. Kind of ironic isn't it. We all see those stories in the news about how well off the insurance companies are doing with the ACA. We see the headlines of record profits. I make a decent wage. It's more than twice the minimum wage but it really isn't enough. I have decent insurance, a 9010 plan with a $2400.00 deductible for me and my wife and the premiums are not outrageous. I am actually paying about what I was at my last job to just cover myself.
Sounds like I have it made. When you first look at it, it does look pretty good. If I was pretty healthy like my wife we wouldn't be in bad shape. Then again if I was in good shape I probably would not have taken the 90/10 plan. Heck we would never hit the deductible. She sees the doctor maybe 3 times a year. But I am not in good shape. I have chronic back pain from a combination of things. I had a fusion just over three years ago. Since then my spine has degenerated pretty quickly. This has left me with pain that at times is horrible.
That pain and trying to control it kills our budget. I have to see the pain management doctor every 60 days by law to keep getting my prescriptions for pain medication. That doesn't include getting the shots that might or might not help lessen the daily pain I have. It doesn't include having to see my primary care doc for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a few other things. It doesn't include the trips to my urologist for chronic kidney stones. ( My kidneys have put out more stones than some rock quarries.) So I hit the Exacta of back pain. Kidney stones combined with a fusion. There have been years when we killed the deductible in 1 month. That's $2400.00 out of our cash flow in a month. Sure the FSA account helps but we can't afford to contribute the full $2400.00 on it. Plus drug costs are separate and have a separate $1000.00 deductible. That bumps the deductible up to $3400.00 for us. Luckily after the $1000.00 for drugs we get them free if not I would not be able to afford my drugs for 6 months of the year.
So what is the answer ? Bank robbery ? Pulling a Walter White ? Yeah thought about it. Both of them but too scared I would get caught. Most of us would be. Besides I am way too polite to be a bank robber. I would probably be apologizing to the bank teller for scaring them until the cops got there. So illegal acts are out.
So what is left ? Well selling stuff worked until we ran out of stuff. We don't have a couch or chairs in our living room anymore. In fact the TV is gone too. We do have one left in the bedroom and another one in the spare bedroom but that one doesn't work. Needs a bulb for the plasma TV. Oh and the TV was given to us. It would cost way too much to fix so it just sits. I can't move it because it is too heavy for me to lift. ( Then again a gallon of milk is too heavy for me to lift.,)
With nothing left to sell we are down to playing bill roulette. Most of you have probably done this at one time or another. Pay one set of bills one month and the other the next. Sure you get late fees but at least nothing gets turned off, you hope. You also cut your food budget. You pray the car doesn't need any major work and you change the oil and brakes yourself. ( I can do both still though my wife has to help me get the wheels off the car. Yeah I agree I am pretty sorry for a guy, heck I can't even lift the charcoal to set up the grill to cook some burgers. I have to have the wife help me with that too. ) Any time one of the utilities gets a rate hike and that seems to be twice a year around here your food budget shrinks even more. With all of that you still can't pay every one so you make payments and prioritize your medical bills. You pay the ones that you need to keep seeing and let others slide. You duck phone calls from creditors. You credit rating hits the toilet and gets flushed.
With all that you feel like crap. You feel like a lot less of a man. Heck you can't provide for your family. Combine this with the depression from chronic pain and you get a fantastic one two punch to the nuts. Lorena Bobbit couldn't do a better job of removing the family jewels. But hey you get up every day and head back to work. Back to the wonderful pain that sitting for 8 or more hours a day brings to a screwed up spine and a butt that has very little natural padding. My wife jokes that I have no assets back there. Even sitting on 2 pillows doesn't really help. Oh well maybe the new desk chair you designed will be a huge hit and you can quit your job and retire in comfort. Oh wait sorry that is the dream world creeping in. It is true. I have designed a new desk chair for people in office jobs, call centers what ever. Now if I could get a prototype made I might have a chance at retirement.
So what is the solution ? Is there a solution ? Even if I declared bankruptcy I would be in the exact same situation, racking up medical bills my income will not be able to afford. The wife getting a job might help. Unfortunately she is in the long term unemployed class. When her job was out sourced she decided to get some education to better herself. This was at the start of the economy down turn. When she graduated she couldn't get a job in her field. Most places would not even call her back as she had a 2 year gap in employment. Didn't matter that she was in school for the time. They just saw the gap. Now she still is looking. She doesn't have a choice. She puts out tons of applications every week. She gets a few nibbles but no job offer.
So who knows how this will end. I don't and I don't have a clue where it might turn for the better. I do know the one thing that will stay constant is the pain and the bills.