The unfortunate event that I spoke of yesterday caused me to look long and hard at my health care coverage - or lack thereof - and I decided that what is important for my family is to actually HAVE health coverage. So, instead of waiting for the powers that be to take care of the "event" I decided that I would look for health care coverage outside of my company.
I knew that it was going to be expensive, but I didn't realize HOW expensive it would be. After you pay the premium there's always a deductible and then you may or may not have prescription coverage. It's daunting, but I refuse to let my family go without coverage and at this time I have no idea how long it will be before the "event" is cleared up. Either way, I'm not willing to put my family at risk.
Sometimes I think that throughout the craziness, there is someone or something looking out for me. The sale of our condo netted us some money which makes the purchase of health insurance less of a burden, but I recognize that there are people out there who are not as fortunate. I did a little research on those that are considered the "uninsured" and there are approximately 46.6 million people who do not have health benefits.
What was shocking was that 89% of those people are from working families and 1/5 of the 46.6 million earn $50K or more annually. So why is it that these people are uninsured? I have no idea why, but I can safely guess that the reason is because health care coverage is so expensive. Not only are the premiums expensive, but the deductibles are high, and the cost of medication is high as well.
Until late last week, I never thought I could be uninsured. I've always had good jobs and have always had health care coverage. And even though I complained about the amount that I would have deducted from my paycheck, I never realized that the premiums were that expensive. I wonder why it is that there is no company that pool the people of uninsured and offer discounted premiums. Maybe these companies do exist and I just didn't search hard enough. Then again, I wasn't willing to really 'price shop' given the situation I was in.
Luckily, I was able to find a temporary solution for not a great deal of money. For now my family and I are covered but there are other pressing issues that I need to deal with. This year has been a very stressful year for us and I'm hoping that 2008 will be less stressful. I count myself as fortunate to have friends, family, and the resources to take care of my family during these crazy times.