If you haven’t had this experience with your health insurance, you’re next!
For the last couple of months I’ve had a stomach issue stemming from norovirus in January. After two months of Obamacare nightmares, I decided to ditch my ‘approved’ Obamacare network doctors and hire a real one. Now, I’m paying cash for care on top of a $700 monthly premium.
My new self-pay doctor is excellent. Today he tells me, “I’m no longer your doctor.” He added that my health insurance company was really my doctor. He prescribed me a medication that is has helped many of his patients heal and avoid surgery. When I took it to an in-network pharmacy to be filled, the cost was $300. The insurance company told the pharmacist they would honor the $20 copay if I would switch to the generic version of a completely different medicine. So, after an accomplished doctor has determined which medicine I should take to help my body heal, some $12-per-hour insurance benefits employee gets to decide what’s best for me?
The doctor told me, “I prescribed you those medications because it was the best to treat your particular condition. But since your insurance company has suggested a cheaper medicine, I guess you'll have to try that and see if it works.” That’s too bad, given the free samples he gave me are already working.
What’s even more laughable about my Obamacare insurance plan is that 25 of the 50 specialist-doctors on their website who are “in-network” tell me they have never accepted this particular insurance. That’s bait-and-switch. Twenty of the remaining doctors are in the same clinic - a clinic I would avoid even for my dog. I know because I tried them. They had less sense than Obama, when it comes to my healthcare.
How did I get here? I moved from South Carolina to Georgia over a year ago. I kept my top-notch SC health insurance plan (purchased in 2004) for as long as I could. But, come October, 2015, I had to switch to the Obamacare exchange. I got a great new plan, which was canceled after three months. That provider was hemorrhaging money and no longer offers any insurance through Obamacare. As a result, I’ve had three insurance plans in three months.
The costs for this one issue? So far, they include a $2500 visit the emergency room, four different prescriptions (none of which are covered in the $20 co-pay outlined in the plan) and over $1700 in out of network services. Under Obamacare, long wait times for the few doctors in the network are becoming the norm. I couldn’t get an appointment with any of the approved doctors this quarter.
When I heard Marco Rubio mock Donald Trump for his health-care reform ideas during the Republican debate two weeks ago, it made me angry. Remember, Rubio has been on the Senate health plan for years now. A Senator’s health plan costs about $438 per month because the government pays 75 percent of the premium. It also touts low deductibles and attractive co-pays, which would have effectively reduced my $5000 journey to just hundreds of dollars. And there are plenty of bonuses too! I can’t get treated for a common stomach-issue on Obamacare, but should Rubio desire to acquire one, the U.S. Senate plan offers coverage for sex-changes. I took this statement directly from the Senate-plan brochure: “We now provide Prescription drug benefits for the treatment of gender identity/gender dysphoria.” So if Rubio feels like a woman, he can take some hormones and make it happen!
Hey single-payer, Bernie Sanders, why don’t you drop your Senate coverage and join mine too?
Had Donald Trump’s mocked-plan of simply dropping the state-line restrictions on health insurance been in place, I could have kept my grandfathered-plan which covered nearly all of my costs.
People who aren't self-employed have no idea how much of their employer’s resources are being used to comply with health insurance and Obamacare rules. In my estimation, your salary is three percent lower as a result of the costs of administering an employee health plan. The outrageous, employer contribution costs are likely costing you significant money in terms of lost wages. Most employees don’t see the extent of the financial damages yet.
There are plenty of people who are on health-care plans similar to mine (or better) who are paying a fraction of what I pay. Why? They are receiving a subsidy. We’re all paying for that. After being a responsible adult for two decades, consistently paying the full cost of my health insurance plan, I’m now waiting in line behind people who have never paid for coverage and now enjoy the same coverage I have for a quarter of the cost.
In my overnight visit to the emergency room, I observed a waiting area full of people who were using it as a clinic. If you can go outside to smoke a cigarette then laugh and tell jokes in the ER waiting room, you don’t have an ‘emergency.’ One nurse admitted that “this place has turned into a clinic.” I”m sure those people disagree with me. Their health insurance, which is nearly free, is an upgrade from the nothing they’ve had for years. And the reason they have nothing is precisely because they are irresponsible, selfish people who will go to the emergency room at midnight because of a common cold.
I’m really angry. There, you have it. It’s time to take back our health-care system from the government and the freeloaders. You want your free, government-run, single-payer healthcare disaster, we’ll give it to you. It’s called Medicaid. If I’m paying my taxes and footing my health-care bills, in full, you’re not going to get to jump the line too!
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