I hope this diary will help some desperate Americans and desperate Kossacks.
It shouldn't be this way. We shouldn't need detailed roadmaps and guides to help us navigate around insurance industry deceit, criminality and corruption, but we do.
I'm a bit ashamed to say that I stumbled on this excellent web site by accident, but I did. I should have known about it.
It's the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute's A CONSUMER GUIDE FOR GETTING AND KEEPING HEALTH INSURANCE . There's a link for each state and the District of Columbia — fifty-one in all.
Here's the link to the guide: www.healthinsuranceinfo,net
For the time being, all we can do, is help each other. Our government has ceded its sacred responsibility to protect the American people. This excellent resource should help.
I also suggest you read this extremely informative Q & A with Karen Pollitz of the Georgetown University health Policy Institute.
Feeling bleak is the emotion of the day.
As usual, I'm reading absolutely awful stories about how Americans are living on the precipice.
Things like this:
We are a small business, two people, husband and wife. We pay $8500 a year for health insurance and we have no money for luxuries, vacations, etc. I drive a 1990 Buick and our "good car" is a 2000.
We were scrambling to come up with this month's premium and my husband said "maybe we should just go un-insured. If I get cancer, I will just shoot myself in the head."
This is a terrible thing for a man who has worked so hard for 40 years to say. I don't know how much longer we will be able to afford to pay for medical insurance, it is so expensive.
And this.
Health pros feel our pain
Most of us lucky enough to have health insurance through our employers are learning that our premiums, our deductibles, our co-pays or all three will be higher next year.
We're not alone. Even some people in the medical community feel our pain.
Consider the experience of employees at the Harris County Medical Society.
Nearly three years ago, the Society switched to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas for medical insurance for its 21 employees.
The Society chose Blue Cross because its rates were better than those of competitors. But mouths dropped toward the end of the year when rates were quoted for renewal.
The Society faced a 22 percent increase in premiums.
A net loss
"We were pretty stunned," said Greg Bernica, executive vice president of the Society.
He said he went back on the market and found a carrier with rates substantially lower. But the bid wasn't final until each employee filled out a six-page health questionnaire.
It turned out to be a low-ball bid. After analyzing the responses, the competing carrier hiked its bid 30 percent, making it roughly equal to Blue Cross's.
So the Society stayed with Blue Cross. But it raised its deductible by $500, lowering the rate hike to 9.4 percent.
"It hurt," said Bernica. "It meant that some of our lower-paid employees had a net loss of income. Their raises didn't cover the higher deductible."
High rates, small payouts
Last year, the increase was another 10 percent. But by then, Bernica had learned that they could request an accounting of how much Blue Cross had paid out.
It turned out that during the first year (actually, 11 months) Blue Cross had paid out 66 percent of the premiums it collected from 17 of the employees in claims for that group.
For four employees who had selected a higher deductible plan involving a health savings account, the claims had amounted to only 9 percent of premiums.
Last year Blue Cross paid only 51 percent in claims for the 17 employees, and just 17 percent in claims for the four.
"Health plans claim that they spend 85 percent of premiums on health care," Bernica said. "If that were true, our premium increases would have been a lot less."
http://www.chron.com/...
The American for-profit insurance industry is nothing but a criminal enterprise. They take our money, then deny our claims.
Dear friends, it's going to take a miracle, and a leader with balls of steel (and yes, women too have cajones), to lead us away from the abyss. This isn't an endorsement of anyone--just the fact.
It shouldn't be like this in the richest country on the planet, but it is.
Here again is the link: www.healthinsuranceinfo,net
Thank you for reading.