Medical Insurance???

[enjoy the ride]

Around here, even if you have insurance, it is very hard to get a family doctor. Most doctors who come here don't stay. They can make so much more in areas where Medical (medicaid in CA) in not so prominant. Califronia limits reimbursement to doctors and hospitals and they have a hard time making it (so I'm told.)
Anyway, I can't see any fix that will not be mandated by law to sort of level the field. If I were a doctor and could make a million a year working in SanFrancisco with 2/3's of the hours, why would I stay here to earn four hundred thousand and have to work so many more hours?
I wonder if anyone has tried a private cooperative for medical care? So of hiring a doctor to take on so many patients and paying out of pocket for his salary?
If everyone put in say $2000 per year or $3000 per family per year, a doctor could have a patient base of 3-4 thousand, probably work less hours and not have to have staff to bill insurance and stuff. That might be attractive to some doctors who would rather practice medicine than paper work, especially if they could be offered a beautiful countryside to live. The staff could be volunteers from the patient base.
Wouldn't address hospitals or drugs but might be a help to rural places.
Heck you might be able to pay a lot more, considering the cost of insurance. Lets day you could get a catastrophic insurance for $400 per month then the prorated doctor amount of $200 per month- that might work if the right sort of group could be put together.
A mega-church could possible be the organization to do this or a small town with sufficient population.

 

[prairiegirl]

Just a thought and this would depend on many factors.
But, what about a COBRA plan should your Tony decide to stay home and concentrate on the farm. If I remember right, you can get it for 12 mon, but I'm not sure of the price.
And, I don't know if it's available to everyone.
And, you would only have a year to bring your farm to a larger profit.

We are struggling with a similar situation. My DH can retire in 3 years, he'd be 55 with insurance benefits. We would have to pay for my insurance.

Just as with everything else these days.......we just can't win.

 

[reinbeau]

COBRA around here is very expensive, you're basically paying full bore for your insurance less any company contribution. It would cost us ~$1200 a month to COBRA what we've got - no way we could afford that on unemployment.

 

[PamsPride]

COBRA was going to be $864 for the same insurance we had before DH lost his job! I did the math and barring a c-section it would have been cheaper for us to just pay cash and go without insurance. Thankfully we only had to go one month without insurane. And even though I was pg and DH was unemployeed we could not get medical assistance unless we went down and applied for food stamps and cash assistance too. The lady was not very nice and I have a few not so nice names I would liked to of called her!!! She had the attitude that if we were not welfare for life people then she was not helping us because the $$ would have some how came out of her pocket and it was a waste of her time to put the paperwork thru!!

 

[FarmerChick]

yup my COBRA on Tony's insurance is $1200 a month also. We only pay about $250 a month for medical coverage. And the coverage is FAB! Dental is super cheap, like $3.00 per person/week......so $9 a week for coverage.

I can't win honestly. I know I couldn't swing 1200 a month....ain't happening even though if he did lose his job I would shop around for the lowest possible coverage plan JUST TO HAVE something. --at least til he got another job, if he could!???

 

[FarmerChick]

ETR
your idea is very sound what you explained. a small community could do that if they had backing for professional type business to set that up.

I think if handled correctly it could be done.

I think in like very rural areas, like Alaska and such, they pay good money for doctors to come out to the towns and treat people and such....kinda like that show on tv a long time ago, Northern Exposure. All the town and mayor etc. chip in and buy a doctor...LOL...hey why not right..HA HA

 

[poppycat]

Sounds like it would be less expensive to keep Tony in his job and hire out some help on the farm. Probably easier said than done

Just me cutting right down to the bottom line as usual.

If you ever do have to shop for your own insurance, we got the best deal for our needs from State Farm. This may have changed over the past few years too. But at the time I spent about three weeks on the phone and that is where we ended up.

Also do the math on the deductible. Even though it seems like a tremendous amount to pay out of pocket, having a higher deductible has ALWAYS worked in our favor. Including emergency appendectomy,one very accident prone kid and all of the "stuff" that accompanies getting older.

 

[Sherrynboo]

We have been without medical insurance since the mid 90's. So far we have been ok but you never know what is around the corner. We have enough free money to be able to afford going to the doctor if necessary but not for any expensive tests or surgeries. It all seems like such a scam anymore! I have heard stories about people going bankrupt and losing their homes even with insurance so I will just take my chances. I am waiting for our incoming president to make medical insurance mandatory like car insurance is.

Sherry

 

[IndyChick]

You might try a health savings account. I got one and had it for 3 or 4 years between jobs and you get tax deductions similar to having an IRA plus you get to build up a savings account that earns interest tax free. You do have to pay a monthly premium as well and you have a high deductible. It worked out okay for me and I now have a pretty good sized savings account to pay miscellaneous medical bills that my insurance doesn't cover. Here is the site I used to search for my insurance: http://www.health--savings--accounts.com/. They were quite helpful.

 

[cknmom]

We have good insurance through DH's work. But for a family plan we pay $475 a month and work picks up the rest. We sure could use that $475 though!

We were sooo glad we had good insurance when I busted my ankle in '06!Shattered both bones, have screws and plates in now. $54,000!!!! We paid $6,000 out of pocket. A settlement is due to bring us $5,000 of that back. Just waiting for the check now

DH had back surgery in '04 but it is ALL on workers comp for the rest of his life.

With DGD, we need to have insurance and I need pain meds.

The big city medical center opened up a clinic up here in our mt. community. They keep thinking about shutting it down, but we NEED some kind of medical care up here. We are 40-60 min. away from a hospital! We finally have a VERY good dr. He wants to find out WHY, not here's a prescription, if it doesn't work we'll try a different one.

Monica