I met a stroke survivor at the doctors office today, he had had a stroke at work. By sheer, stupid coincidence, an ambulance was parked right outside and he got the best care possible virtually immediately.
He still spent 6 weeks in the hospital, and when it came time for release, they wouldn’t let him go home immediately, he would have to spend time in assisted living, which his insurance would not pay for.
He spent $10,000 a month out of pocket for assisted living. He lost his house.
Me? I had a heart attack 3 days after Thanksgiving, 2018. 4 weeks into a 6 week open heart surgery recovery, my company got bought by one of the biggest technology companies in the world, my insurance changed, I lost my doctors, my hospital, and had to start over in a new medical system while complications were doing their best to kill me.
I just had a conversation at work that would cover assisted living or in home care… $330 a month beyond what I already pay for health insurance. Oh, but it covers NOTHING for the first 12 weeks. 90 days of nothing. Hope you have saved that $30,000…
While we were trading these war stories, the Muzak in the doctor’s office started playing this song.
https://youtu.be/qOfkpu6749w#t=58s
Not… even… kidding. Yeah, Aint that America…
Where the quality of your health care, and really whether you live or die, depends on who you work for and what insurance they deign to carry.
I have a friend in the ICU right now. We joke that her bill will cost over a million dollars, and we will call her the bionic woman.
She has been in there for about seven weeks.
Another tech company just bought the company I work for. That means all our insurance will reset, the deductibles will start over, and we will lose our FSA money for some reason.
Luckily tech has good insurance, so fingers crossed nothing else will change for our insurance. Someone said they have a marriage penalty, which was common after the ACA. So the spouse and each kid are an additional couple of hundred a month to be covered. I am not married so I have not looked into that part yet.
I would be happy if we could just break the employer insurance situation that we currently have. It is such a weird system.