Cigna dropped my medicine coverage. I had to to drop two name brands simultaneously to generic else i would be out 4k every 30 days.
The switch was not pretty.
Like, mental breakdown, life changing, never-will-be-the-same not pretty.
That was…8 years ago. I imagine if it was something maintaining my physical health I certainly would have died. I mean, shit, I nearly did. Don’t get me started on the arm i broke as a kid, that didn’t heal correctly because a narcissist parent(RN) wanted to skip the er wait and had hospital buddies patch me up on the dl instead. A bionic arm sounds more feasible than actually getting it to where I could play strings again without pain.I make over $150,000 a year and I live pay check to pay check because my son has autism level 2, speech delays, and other motor skills deficits. He has some sort of therapy every weekday. He’s 13, so we’ve been doing this for 11 years now. And every year it is a fight to get things paid for.
This year my company switched insurance providers and the speech therapist that he has gone to for 6 years was suddenly out of network. So, I either pull him out and start over somewhere new or do what I did and pay $200 out of pocket every week. Which does not go towards our $13,000 deductible. Next year we’re switching again so I’m sure there will be something they won’t cover.
I make too much money to get anything from the state, which seeing how I live in Texas, I’m not really sure I’d want their services. Come hell or high water we getting out of this state and if possible this country next year.
In Australia your son would be eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme which would supply government funding for all the services he requires. You would possibly also be eligible for your own disability support funding as his primary carer but I’m not sure on the criteria for that.
That would be amazing. Sadly I’ve looked into immigration for Australia and New Zealand and they both have restrictions based on autism. They aren’t guaranteed disqualifier, but it is a risk, that if I found a job that was willing to sponsor me, I might not be able to go.
I’m saddened to hear that, I’ve heard a few horror stories about emigrating here, it’s unfortunately restrictive. I hope you can find somewhere that will work for you and your son.
Between my wife and I we make 200K a year. We have a roommate to help pay bills because between her chrones disease and our kids health issues we can’t afford to live. She has been without her chrones medication for 6 months because the hummers was causing problems and the new prescription has been in limbo between pharmacies not wanting to deal with it or her insurance and her insurance continually sending her to pharmacies that don’t accept her insurance. Medication that is easily affordable and available in other countries is dangled just out of reach while she suffers.
I went in for a $10,000 surgery. Told them to bill my insurance and I came out with a bill for almost $30,000! Insurance barely paid $7,000 left me with the rest
I transferred to a new college and learned the first week of class that they required a few vaccinations I was missing. No problem, the on campus health center can provide them. I confirm with them that they accept my insurance, so I go get the shots.
A few months later, I get a bill in the mail for over $3000. Apparently the health center wasn’t in-network, so I have no idea what they meant by “we accept your insurance.” I layer learned that if I had driven 10 minutes west across the state border, there was an in-network office where those two vaccinations would’ve been completely covered.
I still haven’t paid a penny towards that bill, fuck them. I get daily phone calls from an unknown number, it’s probably collections, but I don’t know for sure since I never answer it. This was years ago and my credit score never took a hit. I’d rather die than reward these parasites with my money.
I’m pretty sure I have a tumor growing on my hip too. I’d get it checked, but between student loans, insane cost of living, and rising costs of literally everything else, I can’t afford to right now. I’m a childless engineer with “great” health insurance and a roommate, so I’m relatively well off. I have no idea why shit hasn’t boiled over yet. Makes me want to depose some CEOs too.
When I went on a trip to the US I bought a relatively expensive travel insurance as I knew if something would’ve happened I would be screwed forever.
It did cost me about 80 eur but they claimed 100% cost coverage without copay or any of that nonsense. The coverage was for a whole year but only 60 days after the start of the vacation. It also included legal insurance for medical things with a max payout of 100,000 eur and medical transport back to Germany if possible and necessary.
Did not need to use it fortunately but they advertised that they even covered stuff like decompression chambers after a dive accident. I wonder how much I would’ve needed to fight them if it came to it but I had a cheaper coverage with similar coverage from them when I went to Turkey. There I got the whole sum after I went to the hospital for a really bad insect sting without any fuzz. But it was only a hundred euros or so.
Fortunately this is the closest near contact with the us healthcare system.
£80 for 60 days of full coverage would be fantastic rates for an American. Many are paying $350/month for insurance, and still have +$5000 deductibles.
Canadian here. Had an accident and took a ten minute ambulance ride in Minnesota. $1400.
Also Canadian.
While in Seattle on an H1, needed to go to Northgate for a routine maintenance procedure. (I’m a twin. Guess which procedure)
It’s a well-developed thing, and so i tell the doc, “look. This has been developed for 10 years, it responds well once the pressure’s off, don’t cut me just gimme a local and draw it out with a horse needle.” He agrees.
Next thing I know, “And here we have Mr Guppy, presenting with…” and a dozen kids are looking at a nekkid part of me. And they shoot the local.
And I feel the push of the scalpel cutting. Those motherfucking butchers. And butcher they did.
Had to pay $500 on the way out, and apparently that’s a lucky thing even with my American insurance at the time.
Ultimately I came back to canada because the risk of a car crash ruining me financially for life was too much to bear. Fuck that.
Also Canadian, would drag myself across the border on a broken leg and throw myself on the mercy of the Niagara Falls hospital before I ever got near an American hospital. I’d be bleeding from my head wound and assuring the border guard I had no alcohol or tobacco and did not spend over my dominus.
Blue Cross denied my claim for coverage of therapy ($125/week) because the address is clearly not a business address. Yes, that’s right, my therapist operates from her home, which is a horse farm. So does this mean BC doesn’t cover any home offices? Or is it just ones that have “ranch” in the address?
We’ll see! I’ve filed a grievance challenging the denial. I’m looking at around $6000 for the year if they persist.
My wife has a rare disease. Requires expensive drugs monthly. We hit our max out of pocket early every year.
Bye money. forever. until I die.
Sometimes you don’t need anything crazy to describe how shitty our healthcare system is.
Had to go to the er for a staph infection, no insurance. In short I’m in about 8k worth of debt to the hospital. I was in the er for about an hour. 8k for an hour get fucked integris, so I never paid it out of principle
Worked in insurance for a few months and saw someone with an $8000 deductible.
Was denied life-changing, medically necessary weight loss surgery because my company has less than 50 people employed.
I had to live with a failed gallbladder for a month and a half while the insurance decided if they were gonna pay for surgery. I lost 20lbs in that time because I couldn’t keep anything in my body. I almost died.
One health care facility near me doesn’t accept patients who work at or have previously worked at their competition.
Had my ankle reconstructed last year and the surgery alone billed for $16,000. A piece of foam for my walking boot billed for $150.
My headache medicine would cost me around $1000/month if I didn’t have insurance. With insurance it’s $40/month. My pharmacist helped me sign up for a discount card through the manufacturer so now it’s only $5/month somehow
Got some medical bills sent to collections before the bills ever reached me. By email or paper mail. Haven’t paid any of them and I don’t plan on ever paying them because fuck the people who just sent that shit to collections. Also medical debt is dumb and you just don’t have to pay that shit. They eventually stop bugging you about it and I haven’t seen it reflect on my credit score ever.
A 20 min ambulance ride, with amazing insurance was billed for $575.
My sister almost broke her spinal cord and the insurance gave us the runaround after the corrective vertebrae surgery.
The VA didn’t want to cover the cost of my grandfather’s leg amputations that were a direct result of contact with agent orange in Vietnam.
The VA doesn’t want to cover a coworker’s therapy and medication for PTSD caused by being stationed in the middle east for 4 years.
The VA won’t release my mom’s army medical records because she was part of experimental vaccines when she was in the army. She thinks it was anthrax vaccines, but can’t be sure because nobody will tell her.
If anyone still needs help with the VA you can reach out to your local American legion or other veterans organization and they can help break through some of the red tape.
I moved out of the US and when I had to pay to get a tooth filled my flabber was gasted when they charged me 17 bucks.
I don’t think I can ever go home.
Where did you move to?
A place where I really should’ve considered the implications of literacy before I decided to settle long term.
I’m intersex and have both male and female anatomy. US healthcare “insurance” isn’t coded for people like me. It assumes a sex binary when the facts of reality show otherwise.
Back at my old job, I had full premium health insurance. However, they kept denying each and every claim, denying literally everything. They unofficially recognized my intersex condition and used it against me.
Whenever I filed a claim as female, they’d deny it and claim I was male and thus the claim was incorrectly filled out. When I filed as male, they’d pull the exact same stunt now claiming I’m female and thus the claim was incorrectly filled out. Whatever the claim, large or small, it was always the wrong sex on the paperwork.
It was a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. I have a better job with the government and with a different insurance company, but they too are starting to pull the same stunt. I hate this country for allowing such corruption to thrive.
What insurance company was it? 💜
My wife had surgery. However they didn’t prescribe painkillers until after the surgery.
I got her comfortable at home and ran down to pick them up … and was rejected as “drug seeker”. Wtf. It took a full day before I could convince them to fill it, and they kept wanting her to come in person when she just had surgery
My husband was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in his early 40s. There was a medication that kept his symptoms more or less in control.
Then he lost his job. The meds ran out and it turns out they cost thousands of dollars without his work insurance plan. This was just before Obamacare, and there was no way we could afford unsubsidized insurance for him on my salary.
His colitis got exponentially worse, and was treated only spotadically when I could scrape together a few hundred dollars for the doctor visit, where he might be able to get enough free samples of the med or a round of steroids to reduce the gut inflammation.
One night as we were lying in bed winding down to sleep, I heard him drop his magazine on the floor and start what I now know was agonal breathing. I called 911 and did my best with CPR, but his heart had stopped and in all likelihood he was dead before the paramedics arrived. He was 53 years old.
I found out from his death certificate that he had severe ischemic heart disease. It was undiagnosed because he hadn’t had regular medical care for years because of the vicious circle of unmedicated symptoms/inability to work/no insurance.
That’s my horror story. There’s also my 4+year quest to be diagnosed with MS, being told by multiple doctors that if I lost weight I wouldn’t be so fatigued I could barely move, or have vertigo, or fall down for no reason, or whatever symptom I had at the time. But hey, at least that story eventually ended with diagnosis and treatment… as long as I have my job and insurance, anyway.
