47 Million and Three.
Dec. 6th, 2008 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogAt 12:01 a.m. on Monday, the three of us joined the ranks of the uninsured.
Rather on purpose, but still.
I am loath to place the future of my family's health in a plan named for a poisonous snake, especially because I've been bitten by it once already.
By laying her off late in a month, Eleanor's former employer gave us all of a week and a half (including the black hole of Thanksgiving) to react to the impact it would have on our health coverage. Out of the goodness of their Scroogie little hearts, they actually kept her on the company plan through the end of November. By the end of last week, the dreaded COBRA letters had arrived- one for each of us. We have 62 days to send in a rather prohibitive full payment to continue our existing coverage for one month beyond the current cutoff date. Then it goes up even more, between the 20-odd percent increase they've projected for the coverage and the extra administrative fee on top of that which they can charge for continuing it on direct-bill.
I'd already said "screw that" to that option. Instead, I've joined a Chamber of Commerce group with a plan that should work for us, but it won't take effect until January 1st.
This alternative- going a month without coverage for the little things while still keeping the retroactive chance to get back in if something big should go wrong- seems preferable based on the wonderful experience I had with COBRA on our dental coverage after I left my old firm in '06. That insurer sent us the same stuff- a letter saying we had two months to pay for our existing coverage. Since things were a bit tight at the beginning of my new business startup, I ran that time period out about as long as I could, not using any services, and finally sending in the application and payment a bit before the two months ran out....
Which they declined, because I hadn't applied within 30 days.
I called, I squawked, I generally bitched about the fact that their own notice said 60 days. Finally, they agreed to accept it. We started going to the dentist again. No premium bills came, and I fatally assumed that they'd applied my two months of payments to the two months I'd actually been using the plan.
Nope. They have a novel interpretation of COBRA, which holds that they're not obligated to bill you for coverage, and that you should just know enough to send in a payment in the same amount to the same place every month if you want to keep it going. But if one of those unbilled payments is more than 30 days late, they will damn well send you a termination notice real quick to get you and your bad teeth off their books.
In hindsight, we saved money on that clusterfuck, for at least the first year or so. (This year, with a root canal and two crowns, not so much.) But it definitely soured me on the prospect of dealing with an insurer who is only covering me because the government is making it.
So come Tuesday, I will present my application and my full three-month premium for January through March, which I won't see a penny of benefit for until 1/1 at the earliest (and probably not for long after that, unless something really bad happens). I will then cross my fingers and toes that they don't come up with some dumbass reason to reject it until after the COBRA period expires, and I will send them their damn money whether I get a bill for it or not.
And this is what John McCain said was the finest system in the whole world.
Rather on purpose, but still.
I am loath to place the future of my family's health in a plan named for a poisonous snake, especially because I've been bitten by it once already.
By laying her off late in a month, Eleanor's former employer gave us all of a week and a half (including the black hole of Thanksgiving) to react to the impact it would have on our health coverage. Out of the goodness of their Scroogie little hearts, they actually kept her on the company plan through the end of November. By the end of last week, the dreaded COBRA letters had arrived- one for each of us. We have 62 days to send in a rather prohibitive full payment to continue our existing coverage for one month beyond the current cutoff date. Then it goes up even more, between the 20-odd percent increase they've projected for the coverage and the extra administrative fee on top of that which they can charge for continuing it on direct-bill.
I'd already said "screw that" to that option. Instead, I've joined a Chamber of Commerce group with a plan that should work for us, but it won't take effect until January 1st.
This alternative- going a month without coverage for the little things while still keeping the retroactive chance to get back in if something big should go wrong- seems preferable based on the wonderful experience I had with COBRA on our dental coverage after I left my old firm in '06. That insurer sent us the same stuff- a letter saying we had two months to pay for our existing coverage. Since things were a bit tight at the beginning of my new business startup, I ran that time period out about as long as I could, not using any services, and finally sending in the application and payment a bit before the two months ran out....
Which they declined, because I hadn't applied within 30 days.
I called, I squawked, I generally bitched about the fact that their own notice said 60 days. Finally, they agreed to accept it. We started going to the dentist again. No premium bills came, and I fatally assumed that they'd applied my two months of payments to the two months I'd actually been using the plan.
Nope. They have a novel interpretation of COBRA, which holds that they're not obligated to bill you for coverage, and that you should just know enough to send in a payment in the same amount to the same place every month if you want to keep it going. But if one of those unbilled payments is more than 30 days late, they will damn well send you a termination notice real quick to get you and your bad teeth off their books.
In hindsight, we saved money on that clusterfuck, for at least the first year or so. (This year, with a root canal and two crowns, not so much.) But it definitely soured me on the prospect of dealing with an insurer who is only covering me because the government is making it.
So come Tuesday, I will present my application and my full three-month premium for January through March, which I won't see a penny of benefit for until 1/1 at the earliest (and probably not for long after that, unless something really bad happens). I will then cross my fingers and toes that they don't come up with some dumbass reason to reject it until after the COBRA period expires, and I will send them their damn money whether I get a bill for it or not.
And this is what John McCain said was the finest system in the whole world.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 07:14 pm (UTC)I'm currently on a paid COBRA plan that runs through next July, after which time I could pay to continue. But in June I will switch to my wife's group plan, with lower cost and better coverage, and that will continue till I'm 65 in two more years.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 09:17 pm (UTC)this is why I supported Clinton. I like Obama but I felt that Clinton actually really wanted a universal health care program and Obama only talked about it because he was running against her.
I hope I'm wrong.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 11:40 am (UTC)...here we cannot really afford the NHS so it is constantly under attack. It is some sort of Hybrid now between private/national health service, rationed and constantly 'done over'.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-08 06:32 am (UTC)