Monday, April 11, 2011

A Rant

I'm just going to take a minute to launch an all out tirade against individual insurance coverage. AN. ALL. OUT. TIRADE.

When we were praying through whether or not to move here, I did some insurance research. It culminated in my sitting on the floor of Garrett's baby room--oh how I miss that space--sobbing to Troy about how I absolutely would not move somewhere where our health care would be outrageous and awful. See, I'd been told by agent after agent that because we'd been through infertility, my health care would be through the roof.

Troy was able to get us covered under a group that is based in California. It doesn't really matter what, in the world, is wrong with you if you're on a group plan. Our monthly premiums are, indeed, through the roof and our coverage doesn't hold a candle to what we had at our previous church, but it worked in a pinch. And we fell in love with our pediatrician when we got here.

Recently, to make a long story short, we had some major changes in our health care provider and we can no longer see our pediatrician. We've been told that they're "working on it" but it's been many weeks and I'm not holding my breath. Since changes were being made anyway, we went in to see an insurance agent today--to talk about our options.

We explained that we were thinking about switching to an individual plan. We explained why we'd gone with this particular group plan to begin with. And then we mentioned the infertility. You know, the thing I had a year of treatment for over five years ago. Yeah. That. Apparently I'm still unable to qualify for anything that isn't even more through the roof expensive than what we already have. I find this incredibly super cool. As in, not cool at all.

Oh, one of us can get "fixed" and then we can apply. See, that way the insurance companies won't have to worry about us deciding that we do, in fact, want more children. This is insane. Number one, if we could have actually had more children, we probably would have by now. Number two, none of the plans cover infertility anyway.

But the very best part is still to come. Even once we shell out the money to get spayed or neutered--in this case, neutered--I might be denied on account of the fact that I have an ongoing case of PCOS.

I almost went postal right then and there.

In my case, PCOS doesn't have anything to do with my health--save my reproductive health. That I might be denied medical coverage for it is absolutely rage inducing.

So, at this point it looks like we're staying with our outrageous plan that is now with a company that may as well be called Joe's Insurance Shack because no one has ever heard of it. It appears that, what with my extreme health risks, it is our only option.

2 comments:

  1. This sounds like a big, huge bummer. Just know that the Lord who sees each sparrow fall knows your pain, and that He will provide for you and your family, no matter what. I'm sorry you have to go through this . . . no fun! :(

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  2. That happened to us when we moved to our latest church. I was working full time before and had group insurance. Here, we got individual. We ended up getting two separate policies because it was cheaper. I have a rider on mine for infertility. Mine was more expensive, though, because I am of child bearing age. Uh. What??!?

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