Saturday, October 18, 2008

Rich! According To Them.

If there is one money-suck we deal with more than anything it is healthcare costs. I sat down the other day and totaled up the medical bills we have at the moment. It is over $5000 and I promptly threw up afterwards. I suppose the joke is on us because according to husband's company, our insurance costs will increase 4 % this year, yet we are supposed to be "relieved" than in this time of economic uncertainty, "XYZ Company has worked hard to ensure that increases to premiums have been minimal while maintaining the excellent benefits we come to expect".

Excellent benefits. That in itself is especially laughable considering we spend over $200 a month on prescriptions, $600 on therapy for our child, over $300 out of husband's paycheck a month just to HAVE insurance, and here we sit $5000 in the hole for medical "benefits". And that's not including any doctor visits that happen to come up for minor illnesses. The hysterical part is that they pay so little on anything I can't even see where we are doing a service to our family by keeping the insurance. Of course, the moment we drop the insurance, something catastrophic would happen. I know Murphy's Law too well to even chance that.

Over the weekend I looked into seeing if our son could qualify for our state-funded insurance program for children. According to them, we make too much money. Yet, we don't make enough to pay outright for the services that insurance won't cover or because we haven't met our high deductable.

I can now say I fully understand the big stink over healthcare in America. We are fortunate that we have insurance and that our son is healthy and only needs occupational and speech therapy. But at what cost? The exhorbiant bottom line eats up over $1000 a month from our earnings. And the kicker is that we can't afford to pay any that insurance won't.

But it WILL get paid. It may go into collections and take years, but it will be paid. And our vicious cycle will continue, just like so many other families.

1 comment:

Single Mom, Single Money said...

If there is a local university in your area where Speech and OT students train, you may want to ask about allowing them to visit your son for credit for their practicum or field experience. They would get course credit and you might be able to have at least some of your son's therapy done for free. They are usually supervised by a professor. It's worth a shot!!