Posted on 11/30/2014 10:47:47 AM PST by Yaelle
I was a part of my family member's business, and as an employee of this small family business was able to get myself and 4 kids covered by a private insurance company with a great ppo plan though pricy. Every year, this coverage grew more expensive by a couple hundred a month, until this year when it has gone up by $500 a month. I can't afford it and the business will be closing in 2015.
I don't want to join CA Covered because it's ObamaCare. What do any CA FReepers do for insurance when they aren't getting it paid for through a company?
I am supposed to pay $2500 a month for 5 people. I just can't do this.
Can anyone offer some advice: how to not go to places like Kaiser but not break the bank either? I need to make the change now.
Elbow
Procedure/Surgery Cost Contact
Bursectomy (elbow)i $2,700* Request a Specialist
Distal Biceps Re-attachment (includes hardware)i $6,200* Request a Specialist
Ulnar Nerve Trasposition / Epicondylectomyi $4,510.00* Request a Specialist
I haven’t gone beyond your post number 8, but you really need to consult with an insurance agent.
Year ago I was buying a thirty dollar a tube led, they told me to buy walgreens $20 prescription plan and the cost became 10% of what it was.
So what would you have me do, not having an employer as of jan 2015? What kind of plan would a doctor be happy to see? It sounds like doc’s only care about the company, not your deductible.
Years ago, we took a non-driving neighbor lady to visit her husband in a Kaiser hospital in Los Angeles....the place was a filthy pigsty; walls, doors, elevators were all gooey, sticky and just plain gross.
Who says you have to, in the world of Self Identifying for all sorts of deviant personal behaviors, why Can’t anyone self identify as an Illegal Alien.??
I didn’t pay it, it is what they billed the insurance company, I think after all of the insurance agreed procedure cost it was around $16K. Most of this bill was fro the hospital operating room, staff, etc.
I live in Washington too, and the practices here are being swallowed up by hospital mergers. That is not the case for the midwest, or the south.
and it is still $10,000 over and above the http://www.surgerycenterok.com/pricing/
They care about the deductible, one of the ways they can tell the quality of your insurance over the phone is by determining who your employer is. If you work for the feds, you are golden.
Basically, a high deductible plan puts you in the same basket as the welfare cases, because you are considered a cash, poor insurance patient.
Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants by Andrew Chevallier
I’m going to talk to walgreens about this. Why did they never tell me?
Unfortunately in California, that metric does not hold true any more.
Considering the likely future, Republican or Democrat, check into offshore insurance and “medical tourism” for major medical. Onshore investigate concierge medical practices. Arrange your tax paying so that you do not get a refund as that is the only way the government can penalize you for not getting Obamacare.
If you are near any large city, many hospitals are affiliated with a university.These hospitals have clinics which will offer discounts for your medical care.
MediCal is for those who need it I’d rather have you and your family receive coverage rather than someone who has been here one minute.Wouldn’t you want your family to have some kind of medical coverage? Go with Covered Ca,This is about survival, not what others think.
Yes,MediCal will look at your bank accounts,and anything that you own.
Sorry, that reply of mine about Kaiser was a little truncated. I should add a couple of things: In our area (Santa Rosa), the best physicians are all being sucked slowly into the Kaiser system because they are just sick of dealing with govt crap. So here at least, we have a deep pool of excellent docs at Kaiser. For example, my son needed ophthalmic surgery, and Kaiser had assigned a doc to do it. He seemed like a nice guy, but I knew nothing about him. I got on the Internet and did some snooping about this doc . . . and found out that he is the BEST pediatric ophthalmologist in this area, and well-known for his excellent surgical skills. (He ended up doing major ophthalmic surgery on my husband as well.) So we got a terrific surgeon with no extra charge.
So there are three things about Kaiser I’ve learned:
1) It’s not the same in every area. I love it here in SR, have heard it is good in San Francisco, but word is out that it sucks rocks in Oakland (not surprising, given the probable clientele). So you need to ask around and/or do Internet research and find out if you’re in a good area.
2) You have to be willing to do some Internet research, both on your doctor (and don’t forget, you can change doctors easily — I’ve done it several times to get one I liked) and on procedures etc.
3) You have to be willing to “work” the system, by which I mean that when you come home from a doc you don’t like, you get on the phone with the Kaiser operator and pick out a different one (or look on their Internet site and pick out one whose philosophy looks good to you). I did that several times when I was pregnant, to find an OB I liked. Finally found one who was absolutely stellar and she is still my OB/GYN now eight years later. You can also work it by getting on the phone to the patient ombudsman. They were being SUPER slow scheduling taking off a probably cancerous mole, and I got on the phone and b*tched to the ombudsman . . . and they found an appointment for me three days later.
So *if* Kaiser works for you monetarily, and you are willing to be your own advocate (which really you have to do most of the time nowadays anyway) I really recommend Kaiser.
The only problem with medical tourism for surgery is complications post op. For example- if you have a total joint replacement that gets infected right after you return home, then you have to pay for that care out of pocket.
Good advice. You said it well.
Thanks for all this. Yeah, I don’t qualify for MediCal. I will see if I can find such a clinic. Though I really like some of my doctors and trust them. I trust very few. Most are paid specific pill pushers.
Obamacare is much more likely to be replaced by single payer which will be a whole lote worse but more “equal.” Republicans are just as likely to do that to us as Democrats. Republicans will say that Obamacare has irretrievably destroyed the free market for medicine so we have no choice but single payer. In reality if the government terminated ALL intervention in medicine including all connection with Insurance, Medicaid and Medicare, the market would come roaring back and everyone would find cheaper and better medical care in only a couple of quarters. The interregnum, would be no worse for “the poor” than the best it might get under single payer.
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