Preface: I am insanely lucky to be in a financial position to be able to afford coverage I won't be able to use in order to maintain insurance, but that doesn't change the fact THAT I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO.
My family and I are taking a year sabbatical overseas. I have been self-employed and have always paid for individual insurance. I have some pre-existing conditions and our children have life threatening food allergies as well as some ocular pre-existing conditions.
In order to ensure that we are not turned down for insurance when we return, we are going to have to pay several thousand dollars over the next year for a high deductible insurance plan in the United States with limited benefits. Follow me after the fold for more.
If that's not bad enough, when we return, if we want to upgrade our insurance to better benefits and a lower deductible again, with the same insurer we are using and have used for years, we will have to re-underwrite completely.
In other words, the only insurance we can guarantee we keep is the limited insurance we have switched to now. (We can't afford to maintain a policy with bells and whistles for a year if we aren't going to use it.)
We have just landed here in Argentina, and their insurance system is awesome. Great coverage for a fraction of the price that we pay in the US for excellent medical care. And when I say great coverage, I mean EVERYTHING is covered.
Can America really claim to be a first world nation with our insanely broken health care system that only treats the rich?