Medical Insurance???

[FarmerChick]

Anyone have their own personal insurance?

Tony works a real job and we have benes thru the company. Good ones at a very reasonable cost actually. His benes are wonderful at his job......

but

one thing holding me back from him quitting and us taking the farm to higher income and such is medical insurance. Yup, that bill alone means I dont' think I can make it financially on the farm alone....and it takes time to make good money on a farm.

So wondering if anyone has their own and what did you do to keep the cost down??? Even the "not so great" plans are costly.

Just fishing for ideas.

My brother (at age 45 retired---yup, he made big bucks) and he bought a catastrophic policy from USAA...for $300 a month whole family covered but they paid first $10,000 of all expenses, after that policy covered 100% of everything. BUT I don't have $10K to kick back and use...LOL........when I priced the 3 of us in a normal plan it was like $725 per month. I surely can't do that!

So just wondering what, if anyone, tackled this medical stuff at all?

 

[krjwaj]

Karen,
Its a tough one, for sure. My HD is self-employed and we were covered through the hospital where I worked. When we moved here, i started with a small company and get just a portion of my portion of our plan paid. It is pricey to secure private insurance. We don't go to the doctor much but this year, we both had to go several times and it all went to our deductible...which means we pay our monthly premiums PLUS all the charges. It stinks.
It might be worth it for Tony to keep his job just for the benefits. Some employers offer ins. to part-timers, just at a higher cost. Maybe that would be an option.

I have lost many nights of sleep over the cost of private health insurance!

The other thing is, I wouldn't mind paying out of pocket for doctor's visits and such, but if a hospitalization or surgery occurs without ins.....bye bye farm!

 

[roosmom]

Anyone have their own personal insurance?

So wondering if anyone has their own and what did you do to keep the cost down??? Even the "not so great" plans are costly.

Just fishing for ideas.

I can say that 1st you need to make sure everyone is as healthy as can be possible.
2nd thing is tha you need to take advantage of the once a year blood work and physicals the insurance company offers. Most ins want you to be active in your healthcare. That means you need to make sure you do everything possible to stay healthy, not wait until something is wrong before you get checked out. OK I know there is a better way to say that but cant think of it now, sorry!!!

 

[enjoy the ride]

I don't but maybe some farmer's organization might have some group plans that would be better?
I have never heard anyone have anything good to offer about health insurance at good prices.

 

[PamsPride]

Going without insurance is HARD!!! Especially if you have any kind of assests! When my dad retired he went without insurance even though he got another job...the new job wanted over a $1000 a month for insurance so they went without. My dad ended up with pnemonia...on a ventilator for 17 days...in the hospital for a month after that and then rehab for like 20 days because his shoulders froze up while he was on the vent. It was a LONG recovery process!! He had to go with oxygen tanks and all kinds of crazy stuff. It completely wiped them out of any savings they had from his retirement. The bills amounted to OVER $500K!!!! They had to sign over their house before the gov't would even help them so now my parents can not sell their house or the procedes will go to the gov't and they no longer have an estate because it will all have to go to the gov't because of the medical bills. My mom said they still have thousands of $$ in bills!!! Mom is still without medical coverage!!

My BFF...her DH is self employed...she has private insurance and when they bought the insurance they bought a maternity rider on it. The fine print said that she had to wait an entire year before the maternity coverage would kick in even though she was already paying for it!! Well her one year mark will be in Feb and she is 12 or 14 weeks pg...so they have not covered anything and now they are threatening to drop her before her maternity coverage kicks in because they already know that she is pregnant!! She has called around to other insurance companies and they just laugh when she asks for coverage and says that she is already pg!! So, she does not have any other options! And I think she pays quite a bit per month for the insurance that they do have!

Good luck in your search for insurance!!

 

[roosmom]

FC, You also need to check out AFLAC.

 

[reinbeau]

PamsPride, I never thought I'd say this, but your post made me happy I live in Massachusetts, if only for a moment. That can't happen here - denial of coverage. They'd get run out of the state if they tried it. Of course here there's no option regarding health insurance, you have to have it or you'll get fined So with regulation against the insurance companies comes mandatory payments to insurance companies. Gotta love it!

 

[2dream]

FC - I have AFLAC as a secondary insurance. It pays me not the hospital. But its not enough to to work as a stand alone insurance policy. But it is good if you are sick and in the hospital for any length of time.
It will be interesting to see what our new President comes up with.
As far as independent insurance it is high. When my DH changed jobs it was going to cost me 125. a week to put him on my policy at work. We thought that was high until I checked all available options. We went with the 125. a week.

PP - I sure am glad I live in Mississippi. No way can they make you sign over your house or any other assets. They can threaten but they can't make it happen. Plus the statute of limitations here is 3 years. If the bill is not collected within that time they can hang it up. Plus, even if they sue you they can only attach your wages. If you have no wages to attach they are just left hanging.

 

[PamsPride]

Isn't Aflac only available through your work? Can a private person get it?

 

[2dream]

Gee PP I don't know. I know if you leave your employer you can keep the AFLAC at the same cost. You just pay them direct. I THINK they will sell to individuals. But then when I think I always end up in trouble.