RL Anger

[ILuvGrumpyCat]

I really love how you can go to the marketplace, qualify for a certain amount of help towards a premium. And then STILL be paying over a hundred bucks a month for a single person with a 6000 dollar deductible. Like....isn't it just cheaper to pay out of pocket unless something really, really, really bad happens? 'cause I'll never spend 6k a year for just going to the dr when I get the seasonal crud.

[RnMissionRun]

@iluvgrumpycat said in RL Anger:

I really love how you can go to the marketplace, qualify for a certain amount of help towards a premium. And then STILL be paying over a hundred bucks a month for a single person with a 6000 dollar deductible. Like....isn't it just cheaper to pay out of pocket unless something really, really, really bad happens? 'cause I'll never spend 6k a year for just going to the dr when I get the seasonal crud.

It's cheaper, until something serious does happen, or you require prescription medications that cost hundreds of dollars per month.

[Aria]

@rnmissionrun said in RL Anger:

@iluvgrumpycat said in RL Anger:

I really love how you can go to the marketplace, qualify for a certain amount of help towards a premium. And then STILL be paying over a hundred bucks a month for a single person with a 6000 dollar deductible. Like....isn't it just cheaper to pay out of pocket unless something really, really, really bad happens? 'cause I'll never spend 6k a year for just going to the dr when I get the seasonal crud.

It's cheaper, until something serious does happen, or you require prescription medications that cost hundreds of dollars per month.

^ This. @insomniac7809 used to go to the doctor once a year, maybe twice, if I nagged him. Or tricked him, which I have legit done before. (Fucker had bronchitis. I regret nothing.)

Then last year he had an explosive eye surprise that recurred six times, required he go to a subspecialist for no less than three visits every time, and landed us in the ER of an eye hospital one night at 10pm.

I literally would've had to wipe out our savings accounts, my savings bonds, and my employee stock from my last company to pay his bills were it not for my current company letting me put him on my insurance as an after-tax dependent. Which means I have to the IRS taxes on that as "imputed income", but that's still, like..... $1000 out of my refund annually to get him deeply discounted insurance that actually covers stuff.

This year he had surgery to correct that eye issue and chewed through our entire deductible by March. He's gone to the doctor.... exactly twice since. For post-surgery follow up.

It's kind of a crapshoot with insurance, really, but.... that's also kind of the idea behind it? Like, that's how the company makes money? It's a shared pool of funds that only works if most people are paying more into it than they're getting back out of it. That's also why it's a fairly shitty way to manage healthcare because sooner or later, pretty much everyone is going to need to use it for something major. Unlike homeowners insurance, where it's unlikely that everyone's house is going to burn down at some point

[surreality]

@rnmissionrun This.

$250k of surgery and medical costs 5 days after insurance kicked in, since they switched us randomly from one to another through husband's work at the start of that year.

That $5k deductible? Yeah, I'm alive to pay for it, so this is not my complaining face. Four hours later into the ER and I would not have been.

Puts things in very sharp perspective when it happens.

[mietze]

@iluvgrumpycat only if nothing happens to you. Until the ACA we had catastrophic care only with a 5000 deductible. It cost us over $1000/mo. It was okayish since we are frugal, were housing-stable, and were healthy. Then we had a child nearly die after birth from a hospital acquired infection. We are talking over 500k racked up in less than three weeks staying in the PICU, and then all the expense of 8 weeks of home iv antibiotic therapy, follow ups that cost $$ on top of that. I have seen the difference in care for people who acquired q spinal cord injury while insured and those who did when they didn't have insurance. And it is brutal. You are talking like 10+ years reduction in life expectancy because of no access to proper equipment and rehab.

You can roll the dice and take chances. But no, it's really not cheaper to go without.

[Auspice]

@iluvgrumpycat said in RL Anger:

I really love how you can go to the marketplace, qualify for a certain amount of help towards a premium. And then STILL be paying over a hundred bucks a month for a single person with a 6000 dollar deductible. Like....isn't it just cheaper to pay out of pocket unless something really, really, really bad happens? 'cause I'll never spend 6k a year for just going to the dr when I get the seasonal crud.

It's painful because... the marketplace will sometimes suddenly change your cost on you. That was the hard lesson I learned.

I mean, yes, it's helpful if you HAVE to have insurance, because paying for it raw out of pocket was absolutely out of the question... but then I had to just drop it entirely because when they got ahold of me and went 'oh btw we've decided to charge you $400/mo instead of the $300/mo (for the barest minimum cheapest plan you were on)' I had to go...... oh, I can't afford it at all anymore

thankfully my job moved me from contractor to employee a couple months later and I was able to get on THEIR insurance which, for top-tier plan, I pay just shy of $200/mo total (and also get vision/dental).

But yeah, the marketplace still needs......a lot of work.

That is my biggest advisement: whatever you get, still make sure to keep something in your budget just in case. Because they might audit you and decide oh, hey, we're gonna start charging you more now.

[Paris]

I am uninsured. My cancer-related costs have run up to about $40-50k. (For cancer, that is cheap.) I got to stage 3c because we couldn't afford chemo. I only got chemo because my oncologist treated me for free. This didn't mean that my treatment was free, but that he wasn't going to charge me HIS fee, and I went through quite a few before finding one willing to treat me at all (because I was uninsured). My prognosis, because I'd had to wait a year between surgery and chemo, was 'a few months to live, maybe a few more with chemo. We want to try to make you as comfortable as you can be for the time you've got left'.

I went unexpectedly into remission, but I wasn't supposed to. Skip the next section if you need to because it's going to be gross, but I want to try to convince folks to stay insured with my real life example.

The excruciating pain of my tumors coming out of my navel and pressing into my rectum, groin and spine, consuming my reproductive system and junk, the physical cost of major surgery that butterflied me on the operating table and took out a football-sized tumor piece by piece because I would have died if it had all been taken out at once (the thing had grown an artery), my side muscles, part of my abdominal wall, scar tissue all over my abdomen several inches thick, and several other bits that I'd love to have; bleeding every day for over a year until surgery, or how much the double infusion (five hours a shot) and the booster shot fucked me up and still fucks me up to this day with permanent severe nerve damage and other damage. And not just the physical, I was a mental zombie for years and I mostly still am. I still have to take five Oxy a day, and fighting to get that prescription was a nightmare even though I respond well to it, have never felt the need to increase my dose, and respond to nothing else as effectively.

I only got my surgery because my tumor exploded: it had so many tendrils snaking out that it wrapped around part of itself and burst. That qualified as an emergency so medicaid covered part of the fee. My chemo did NOT qualify.

This was and has been my life for the last few years. (This is why I get annoyed when people say I did this or that, like, who has the time when you have actual stuff to worry about?)

If I'd had insurance and regular check-ups, this could all have been avoided.

I strongly suggest trying to avoid the horror story that is getting seriously ill whilst uninsured.

I understand premiums suck, but D and I have been paying over a grand a month just to cover our medical costs out of pocket because I am uninsured and she lost her benefits because of my cancer fundraiser (under Trump's new rules, that counted as income, not medical costs; her choice was to drop my treatment or lose her healthcare).

After all that, I now have to become the aide just to save a portion of that because I also have diabetes and we need to have enough money to keep actual food in the house. Considering that several of my friends have been dying from kidney and liver related ailments in some cases due to diabetes, I find it particularly urgent to eat better.

If this country had any semblance of reasonable healthcare, all of this bullshit could have been avoided. I'm originally from canada (no, I could not return to my home country for treatment), and availed myself frequently of health services there, so I know what actual decent reasonable and available and effective healthcare actually is. I feel for everyone struggling with their medical costs, but insurance is necessary or you can die or suffer really horribly.

[RnMissionRun]

@aria said in RL Anger:

It's kind of a crapshoot with insurance, really, but.... that's also kind of the idea behind it? Like, that's how the company makes money? It's a shared pool of funds that only works if most people are paying more into it than they're getting back out of it. That's also why it's a fairly shitty way to manage healthcare because sooner or later, pretty much everyone is going to need to use it for something major. Unlike homeowners insurance, where it's unlikely that everyone's house is going to burn down at some point

They're counting on having enough subscribers that don't actually need the health insurance (ie young, healthy people) to balance out the number of people who do actually need it. This works for the big companies such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield but not for ObamaCare.

[Tinuviel]

@rnmissionrun Y'all motherfeckers need socialism.

[mietze]

@rnmissionrun Obamacare isn't an insurance company. It's a series of mandates FOR the insurance companies. Insuring that the pool of people includes young and healthy people is part of "Obamacare".

[RnMissionRun]

@mietze said in RL Anger:

@rnmissionrun Obamacare isn't an insurance company. It's a series of mandates FOR the insurance companies. Insuring that the pool of people includes young and healthy people is part of "Obamacare".

I know. I was referring to it in the generic sense of "insurance for people who couldn't otherwise afford insurance".

[TNP]

It also helps if you're in a blue state. Taking NY as an example...

Medicaid is federally funded but state run. Making numbers up, let's say you qualify for Medicaid if you make less than 20k a year. Now lets say you qualify for Obamacare's premium assistance if you make over 35k a year. Notice the gap there?

Obamacare allocated funds to the states for expanded Medicaid. It was intended to create a program to help insure people who made too much for Medicaid but too little to get federal assistance in paying their insurance premiums for the marketplace plans. The catch is, it was optional.

Most blue states did so. NY has 'essential plans': 4 tiers to fill that gap that cost you nothing or next to nothing. Live in a red state such as Texas and you're screwed.

[Tinuviel]

Venga Boys is not "old people music," dammit.

[Ganymede]

Opposing counsel: wall of text in e-mail excoriating me for being a meanie

Me:

[Too Old For This]

@ganymede

[Ganymede]

@too-old-for-this

[Too Old For This]

@ganymede

[Aria]

@rnmissionrun said in RL Anger:

@aria said in RL Anger:

It's kind of a crapshoot with insurance, really, but.... that's also kind of the idea behind it? Like, that's how the company makes money? It's a shared pool of funds that only works if most people are paying more into it than they're getting back out of it. That's also why it's a fairly shitty way to manage healthcare because sooner or later, pretty much everyone is going to need to use it for something major. Unlike homeowners insurance, where it's unlikely that everyone's house is going to burn down at some point

They're counting on having enough subscribers that don't actually need the health insurance (ie young, healthy people) to balance out the number of people who do actually need it.

Yes, thank you for explaining.... the thing I just said to me?

I'm aware that's what the insurance companies, and yes, the insurance companies who are on the "Obamacare" marketplace, are hoping to get young, healthy people who aren't going to need it much on the insurance plan. Again, that's kind of how insurance works, and the reason behind the mandate/tax penalty for not being insured. That was meant to pool in as many people as possible, including those not inclined to buy insurance because "they don't need it", so as to prevent premiums from skyrocketing as the result of insurance companies now having to cover people they would've outright refused before.

And once again, that's why I think that health insurance -- while necessary for everyone to have because Jesus H. Fucking Christ, the consequences of something going seriously wrong and not having it -- is generally a crappy system for an entire country to depend on. People don't want to pay for it when they think they don't need it, when they do need it they very well might not have it, and even if they do have it, the insurance company exists to generate profit and has a vested interest in refusing to pay for things. Like, that's just not a great system for most of the people involved. And after having gotten sick while I was living in Sweden -- and having to pay out of pocket because I wasn't a legal permanent resident, and thus not in their national healthcare coverage system, which was still cheaper than having the same thing treated here with insurance, and NOT counting my health insurance premiums -- yes. Yes, I agree with @Tinuviel. Y'all need some socialized medicine.

[Arkandel]

@aria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwDvF0NtgdU

[Aria]

@arkandel Dude, my company has a Toronto office. I check our job board every week for the sake of my own career path, but seriously. If I ever reach a level in our organization that I can justify a transfer....

<makes grabby hands at Canada in general>

It has also occurred to me that if I had just gone through with it and married my shitty ex, I could have Swedish citizenship and a divorce by a now.

I mean, not that I think either of those countries is perfect. I don't, and I can certainly launch into a very long lecture about Sweden's treatment of its indigenous peoples that tended to very much upset my Swedish friends whenever they started in on one of their tirades about being "the moral compass of the world" (yes, my ex actually said that, like... outloud), but.... seriously. 'Man, I should've married and divorced my deeply emotionally abusive ex so I wouldn't have to live in this shitshow' is not a normal thought for someone to have.