I recently applied for health insurance online; I think I wrote about this previously here, but it bears repeating.
Anyway, because most of the employees at my company are covered with VA benefits, those of us who are non-vets receive a monthly stipend that helps defray the cost of personal health insurance - if you can get insurance.
Don't kid yourself, getting insurance as a private citizen ain't easy, especially when you're pushing 50. I'm in pretty good darned health, given the lifestyle I led for so many years. Haven't been to a doctor since the flu I caught two years ago, and don't smoke, get semi-regular exercise, and eat a little too much but definitely nothing one would consider edging the needle into the obese range.
So I applied for "brazalian bikini" coverage with Humana at a monthly cost of 348.00 a month. I had a $2500 deductible with this plan, but figured it would be okay since that's pretty common anyway.
I applied online as they were supposed to provide "instant approval" but of course, I didn't receive that, nor did I actually receive the quoted price posted on their site.
The cost rose by about $14 a month, pushing me into $360 territory, and I was also informed that I would be required to submit to a health exam and they were going to call me to schedule an RN who would show up at my house.
A couple of weeks later, some guy rolls into my driveway dressed in blue hospital scrubs, weighs me, draws blood and takes some whizz from me, asks me some questions about my health and blows outta the visit in less than 10 minutes.
another couple of weeks go by and I receive my denial of coverage letter from the good folks at Humana, who provided a copy of my blood test results as the reason they denied me.
So I reviewed the lab results and was surprised to see that several were ever-so-slightly outside of the "normal" parameters for lab values.
Hmm, thought I, although the values that appear to be abnormal are only tenths of a point outside the range listed, I'd better go online and look up each test to see what I might be brewing.
So that's what I did.
Imagine my surprise when, as I began comparing my test results to lab results on several sites, i discovered I was almost dead-center perfect on every single number. I say again: in every single test I was well within normal limits and most I was just perfect on.
Huh, thought I, what the heck?
I re-examined the document they'd sent me and was shocked to discover that the fine folks at Humana had a sentence in there I'd missed earlier. It seems that they weren't using "clinical" lab scores to assess me at all, but rather "underwriting values."
Oh yeah baby, the insurance company underwriters had established their own "lab test results" parameters and used those on me rather than standard, clinical, genuine, standard lab results that doctors and nurses use to assess the patient's health.
So, thanks to this ridiculous policy, I too am one of the millions of Americans without health insurance.
You called 911? Without asking first?
Self-employed and uninsured, she's on the 'never-get-sick' plan. Calling the paramedics might not be doing her a favor.
I can't afford to get sick. Like 46.3 million other Americans, I don't have health insurance.
The government should issue identification tags for people like me. Call it a DND (Do Not Dial) order for the medically uninsured. That way, if strangers see us on the street -- injured, ill or otherwise ailing -- they won't be tempted to call 911. They'll spot the DND tag and keep on walking. They'll tell other passersby, "Don't bother, she doesn't have insurance."
When my mother saw me suffer a seizure four years back, like any worried parent, she ran for the phone. Later at the hospital, instead of thanking her for calling the paramedics, I asked, "You couldn't have waited until I stopped shaking?"
"Jill, you were foaming at the mouth," she said, "and moaning, with your eyes rolled back in your head."
"Still, you couldn't have waited?" Or called my insurance company (I had coverage at the time) to find out what kind of treatment my plan would pay for after a grand mal seizure?
As a self-employed writer and tutor, my health insurance options are limited. Great coverage comes at a high cost. Having no coverage can come at an even greater cost, should catastrophe strike. Later, I went with a "major medical" plan. It seemed the perfect compromise; the plan would pay for a high-cost medical event, and I would take care of the little stuff.
I signed with an insurance company, and three weeks later, my chest exploded after a workout. The medical term was tachycardia, or racing heart. A stranger spotted me sprawled across the running trail -- I had almost made it to my car -- called 911, and an hour later, I was sitting in an ER bed, fully recovered, breathing a deep sigh of relief that I had "major medical." I didn't expect insurance to cover all of the $5,000 in hospital and ambulance bills, but $400?
I haggled with insurance representatives for weeks, asking why I should pay nearly $300 per month for a plan with as much coverage as a Brazilian bikini.
One of them said, "It gives you the security of having insurance."
I couldn't afford security, so I got a job at a coffee chain, one of the few companies offering health insurance to employees working 20 hours per week. What else was I going to do with a master's degree in religious studies but become a barista?
My boss gave me 18 hours the first week, 19 the second, promising that the magic 20 was coming. Three months later and still, I was working 18 or 19 hours per week. My latte plan soured before it even started.
Which left me to design my own health insurance, which I call the never-get-sick plan. I've been on it for about two years now. The coverage stinks, but at zero dollars per month, it's a highly affordable option for the self-employed. I would recommend though that if you have family in Canada, keep them on speed dial. Just in case. And don't forget to take your vitamins.
Hudgins lives in Durham, N.C.
jillhudgins@yahoo.com or www.jillhudgins.com
