2010-03-30 11:54![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldisciplineNot 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.
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.
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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.)
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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.