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]

B/c the end of employment was voluntary, no, unfortunately.

Rick Perry needs to be fed to angry weasels an inch at a time, IMNSHO.

[cheez-ball.livejournal.com]

Suck! I hope you all can find something that works for you all.

Rick Perry needs to endure six rounds of chemotherapy and two rounds of radiation with no time off from work - as I saw one graduate student do the year he changed us over. Or perhaps he should have major abdominal surgery with only 2 weeks off. I saw another grad student return to work 2 weeks after her c-section. The second grad student was a foreign PhD student in statistics. The terms of her visa stated that she had to retain her student/employee status and health insurance the entire time she was in the country or face losing her visa.

[ginnyland.livejournal.com]

You would think that your domestic partner being unemployed would count as a "qualifying event." Something about that just seems very screwy. Regardless if she voluntarily left or not should not factor in because she was still jobless for a period of time.

So now it seems we face a choice: Stay at a job that is driving you batshit crazy and forces you to cost the insurance company MORE money with either medication or therapy. OR quit your job and either spend an arm and a leg on insurance, or go without insurance which would just cost taxpayers more money in the long run. OR, I guess we could just fuck it all up at work and get fired. None of which seem ideal imo.

/sigh. You talk about this on the same day Scott tells me to A)Start looking for a job in Florida and B)Start looking at insurance in Florida.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Well, I have perfectly good insurance through my job. The problem is, I can't easily get K on it in a timely manner. We have a nine-month donut hole between now and the first of the year, when adding her in November's enrollment period would take effect.