How the Health Insurance System is Screwing People (and by "us" I mean "Me and Kim")

[digitaldiscipline]

Not directly, but the health insurance system is not making me very fucking happy, in a very personal way.

K, as most of you know, has been temping since her tenure at LPZ ended. She's been on COBRA in the interim, which is, as probably fewer of you know, FUCKING EXPENSIVE.

Fortunately, I work for a company that's cool enough to offer Domestic Partner benefits. Open enrollment, unfortunately, happens in November, but if you have what is considered a "qualifying event" during the year, you can add your partner at any time during the year.

Not being able to afford COBRA isn't a qualifying event. So, in theory, K could get health insurance through my job, but in practice, she can't. Which means her options are: be uninsured, or go broke paying for insurance.

The invisible hand of the market, as evidenced by all those independent insurance commercials that have proliferated? They're the next thing to fucking useless, because they don't offer stuff like, you know, dental coverage, or they have a shitty prescription plan (if they have one at all).

Anyone who says we don't need to correct some serious goddamned shortcomings in the way medical coverage is provided in these here United States is cordially invited to KISS MY ASS.

Comments

[etcet.livejournal.com]

The list of things we can do is:
- Get married
- Wait until November

I suppose, obeying the letter of the policy but not the spirit, we could break up, then get back together, but that's fairly high on the "are you fucking kidding me?" bullshit meter, and is exactly the kind of system-gaming fuckery that makes me want to take a baseball bat to people for doing.

[critus.livejournal.com]

Have you actually run this past HR or are you just going from what the documentation says?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

This is from a conversation with HR, who called the benefit coordination office.

[critus.livejournal.com]

That's full of lame.

[aishlynn.livejournal.com]

YES IT IS!!!!!

oh and the real kicker here is that, if i were to go OFF the COBRA, the one (yes, this is just ONE) Rx med that i really, REALLY can't do without would cost me $422.99 PER FUCKING MONTH!!!!! And the generic (which -isn't- the same and i did take for a bit and it didn't work quite right... grrrr.) is a major savings at ohhhhh....$230.99.

No, seriously. and that's 1 of 3. and sadly, none of them but oral contraceptives is an option to drop. And HELLS NO am i dropping THAT one.

On the plus side, the temp agency i'm with (although my acct. rep is full of cluelessness for the most part) DOES have an insurance program and i'm looking into it. COBRA is currently $391 and change. Un-fucking-believable. and there's really no choice atm.

grumble, grumble, feh and meh.

(which, please note, is nothing like Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. although i -do- look rather witchy at the moment with my dye-gooey hair piled up on my head.)

[aishlynn.livejournal.com]

And yes, i know my leaving the zoo was voluntary. but to stay longer may have required another bevy of pills on the list AND... my being committed. to more than just my animals' health/well-being.

[ginnyland.livejournal.com]

Damn $391 a month for Cobra? That really sucks.

[ivy]

That's totally ridiculous. I'm so sorry.

All my chronic health crap became pre-existing conditions ten years ago, because I was between jobs and broke. (I got fired because I kept having diabetic comas. When I didn't know where my rent was coming from due to unemployment, hell no I did not have $450 a month for COBRA.)

Lots of sympathy.

[critus.livejournal.com]

The only reason I'm asking is that when Krystalle went on mine it was outside of open enrollment. Now, that was when they first implemented the program so perhaps they had exceptions in place at that point, but it seems to me as though if she is not, currently, documented as your "domestic partner" in our records putting the paperwork on file to do so would count as a "qualifying event."

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I think you got in during the "grand opening sale".

Simply filing the paperwork doesn't do anything but lay the groundwork for streamlining getting her on it come open enrollment time, unfortunately.

[critus.livejournal.com]

Shit. I just looked up the federal COBRA assistance deal and, like unemployment, it only qualifies if you were involuntarily terminated. :(

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Yep. One more way the entire edifice systematically ensures the nice people, who play by the rules, get the shit end of the stick at every turn.

No real surprise that I'm bitter about the entire process, really.