Are your Health Insurance rates going crazy, too?

[caseydog]

Anyone out there buy their own Health Insurance?

I just got nailed with another rate increase. This one is 22-percent!!!

My boss has seen the HI rates for his family of four go up by 61-percent in the last year.

Anyone else getting beaten up like this?

CD

[tonyj]

I have to buy my own, and it is ridiculous. My premium is more than my house payment (small house, but still amazing).

I increased my deductible to a high level a couple of years ago to not pay monthly what I am paying now. What is crazy is that my yearly medical costs are only a couple hundred dollars a year right now--but I am scared to death of that potential quarter to half million dollar hospital stay.

I wish someone could come up with an affordable solution.

[elmo]

Ours has been getting a little goofy here also. We keep paying more and getting less and they will be changing it again this year. The kids doctor is really good and won't be covered in the new program and we aren't going to switch, so the bill will be all ours. It is hard to find a doctor a 3 and 5 year old want to go visit.

[mikeschn]

On a similar topic... it's not just health care, it's everything.

Anyone got a good way to hedge against inflation? Besides the obvious... gold, silver, etc

[halfdome, Danny]

It always seems that high gasoline prices fuel inflation in all sectors of the economy. Danny

[SmokeyBob]

What health insurance. Be glad you got something to complain about.

[robfisher]

I know of only one real worrkable hedge against inflation. A few simple rules. Don't say it won't work. I know too many people living these rules and it works perfectly.
1. Quit your job.
2. Sell all that you have. ALL!
3. Don't own anything, don't want anything.
4. Live on the streets, use the system. All of it; welfare, food stamps, homeless shelters, you get the picture.

Granted, this is no way to live and I couldn't be happy this way, but I do know it's inflation proof. The big secret is in rule 3. Don't want anything.

[caseydog]

I buy my own health insurance, and use Unicare.

In fairness, I have to give Unicare their props for doing what they said they would do when I was diagnosed with cancer a few years back. I was treated, and they paid what they said they would pay.

Now, I pay $271 per month for my HI. I have a $3,000 annual deductible. After that, Unicare pays 75-percent.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I blew through my entire annual deductible in 24 hours. My out-of-pocket expenses for the first year was more than a third of my annual income. The second year, it was just as much.

I am cancer-free right now, and have a good outlook for the future. However, I really don't have an option of "shopping" for a better rate, because of my "pre-existing condition".

I can't imagine being a father of three kids, and working as a truck driver or warehouseman, and having a kid diagnosed with cancer. My cancer forced me to give up my nice car and drive a faded Volvo with 110K miles on it for a year. What does the truck driver with three kids have to give up? Lunches for a year? Two years? Bankruptcy?

My premiums are 3/5 of my house payment, now, and just as much as my car payment. By the end of next year, I expect my health insurance payment to be bigger than either my house or car payment.

How does that effect other people? Well, I've already cut my consumption of other things to prepare for $500 per month health insurance payments in a year or two. The US is supported by a consumption economy (not "service" like the talkingheads like to say). People stop buying stuff -- the US economy is dead.

CD

[Bill Fernandez]

Just turn 65 And get on medicare.
Bill

[Eunice]

Be glad you arent in California!
I retired and now pay full insurance. It is $400 a month just for me. kenny had to sign up with his employer because it would have been $900 for the two of us. I would not have been able to retire with those prices. It is just going to get worse.

Bill
10 years from now Medicare will probably be $200 a month plus part D and then I will have to buy a supplement. It doesnt look good.

Eunice

[Guy]

Most insurance companies are heavily involved with the real estate market. Whenever there is a downturn the rates skyrocket. This time they cannot pass it off to Lawyers or Katrina, just their bad investments.

[Hamcan]

I don't know if, as a Canadian, I should even open my mouth here, I do not want to get anything political started.
In the province of B.C. a single person pays $54 a month for basic medical coverage. Two [a couple] pay $96 and a family pays $108. These rates are paid to the Medical Services Plan operated by the government, membership is mandatory and of course there is a lot of bitching about the system and the service level. Perhaps that is human nature.
If you go to emergency in any hospital in the provice with a non life threatening illness or injury you will end up waiting. If you require tests you will wait unless your Dr. is seriously concerned for your immediate health.
What I am saying is that it is far from the perfect system, however, it works and is affordable and it will require constant effort to keep it working. The privatization gremlins are busily trying to undermine public confidence in the system and like rust those folks never sleep.
I have a friend that has a very serious cancer and has had three operations this year and radiation therapy and weeks in the hospital. I have no idea how much that would have cost under a private system but of course she would now be bankrupt if not for the medical system we have where we are all in the same boat pulling together.
Regards, JG

[Mike C.]

I have insurance through my employer and Miriam and I are covered.
But Miriam had cancer 7 years ago and if it wasn't for my insurance, she would be untouchable. We looked for several years to find her a life insurance policy and finally had to settle on one through AARP.

The insurance companies are all publicly traded and therefore required to show a profit or the stockholders would leave, so if the people in charge are not smart enough to make a profit, they raise the rates.

BTW, our health insurance has gone up 5 to 10% per year for the last 8 or 9 years. When for many years I don't think it increased 1 or 2 % per year.

Can't live with it, can't live without it.

[caseydog]

I don't know if, as a Canadian, I should even open my mouth here, I do not want to get anything political started.
In the province of B.C. a single person pays $54 a month for basic medical coverage. Two [a couple] pay $96 and a family pays $108. These rates are paid to the Medical Services Plan operated by the government, membership is mandatory and of course there is a lot of bitching about the system and the service level. Perhaps that is human nature.
If you go to emergency in any hospital in the provice with a non life threatening illness or injury you will end up waiting. If you require tests you will wait unless your Dr. is seriously concerned for your immediate health.
What I am saying is that it is far from the perfect system, however, it works and is affordable and it will require constant effort to keep it working. The privatization gremlins are busily trying to undermine public confidence in the system and like rust those folks never sleep.
I have a friend that has a very serious cancer and has had three operations this year and radiation therapy and weeks in the hospital. I have no idea how much that would have cost under a private system but of course she would now be bankrupt if not for the medical system we have where we are all in the same boat pulling together.
Regards, JG

Canadian health care is really demonized down here. I've never lived in Canada, so I don't want to pretend to know what your system is really like, but a lot of folks here are pretty darn sure they don't like it, whether they know anything about it or not. We "Mercans" don't always find that knowledge is all that important when forming an opinion.

Cancer didn't bankrupt me, but it sure gave my finances a beating. I don't know how a lot of families make it -- I guess a lot don't.

[mrainey]

If you go to emergency in any hospital in the provice with a non life threatening illness or injury you will end up waiting.

It's no different here in that respect. My daughter and I once waited four hours in an emergency room to get her broken wrist looked at - she was in a good deal of pain the whole time. Some others who were waiting looked to be in even worse shape.