good news/bad news
Posted on | 7 months ago, in the early afternoon | 8 Comments
This morning I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning — my last before our bullet-proof Amazon.com insurance benefits go away at the end of this month. I’d been having a little sensitivity with one particular tooth; so while I was there, I asked about it. The doc did some tests. He poked and prodded. And it soon became quite evident that I have a 20-year-old silver filling essentially rotting out. I also have a teeeeny cavity. When I say “teeny” I mean “the doc said if he knew for sure I was coming back in six months he’d say to forget about it for awhile.” That’s how teeny.
So. This means I can either go back tomorrow and spend $275 while it’s Kind Of Uncomfortable But Not Dire … or wait until the thing fails altogether and then try to scrape up $900 for the same set of fixes without insurance.
Ergo, I’m sucking it up and going back tomorrow around lunchtime, which kind of makes me want to throw darts at babies.
Before anyone pipes up with, “Why don’t you just keep your benefits with COBRA?” let me tell you something about our COBRA plan — which, I’ll have you to know, we are on right this moment: It costs us over $800 a month. And although it gives me a bit of a thrill to imagine the COBRA Commander bickering with Destro over our prescription plan and out-of-pocket deductible, we simply can’t afford to maintain this much longer. We’re downgrading to a much crappier plan because it’s all we can swing with both of us now being effectively self-employed; and no, this crappier plan does not come with dental or vision coverage.
To sum up: After tomorrow, our eyes and teeth are on their own. So I’m fixing these stupid teeth while I can still afford to, and praying that I meet no more pirates in Portland.*
Yeah, anyway. This sucks. It’s not the end of the world, obviously — I mean, being hideously underinsured isn’t as bad as being completely uninsured, as I ought to know. I spent much of my early adulthood uninsured, and I survived, didn’t I? Of course, I had pneumonia twice and ended up putting almost $8,000 on credit cards that I only finally paid off this year; and I went ten years without seeing a dentist, but you know, hey. At least my healthcare isn’t paid for by COMMUNISTS.
[:: eyeroll ::]
* If you’ve been reading here awhile, you may recall that last year I got into a knife fight with a pirate, and thus broke my glasses. Never you mind the rumor that I tripped and fell on a sidewalk. It was much more glamorous than that. No, for real.
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8 Responses to “good news/bad news”
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January 28th, 2010 @ 2:42 pm
I had to carry COBRA between jobs nearly ten years ago. I was working a small consulting firm that was just starting out and didn’t offer any benefits of its own yet. At the risk of going uninsured, we partnered on the cost until he got his plan in order. It was EXPENSIVE even back then!
We continued that arrangement for our full 18 months of eligibility while we waited for him to get his plan in order. However, during that time we learned my daughter had a heart condition (which she has since outgrown. Yay!) and my wife was pregnant with our son, who was due at any time.
In the end, my employer told me he wasn’t going to create a group plan as long as my family was in it. Our health issues risked out his plan for everyone else and sent his rates through the roof. That left us on our own to find insurance, only no one would have us as my daughter was considered “uninsurable” due to her pre-existing heart condition, and my wife was also similarly so because she was pregnant (apparently also considered to be a pre-existing condition). We were screwed.
At the end of 18 months we switched to COBRA’s absolutely worthless “catastrophic” coverage , which was even more expensive, just so we wouldn’t have a lapse. Thankfully, I was able to leave my little company after two months of that and get on with a much larger company that offered a generous group plan with no preexisting coverage limitations.
I agree with you that the U.S. health care system really sucks. Sure, it could be worse, but that’s no reason to pretend it’s great either. We went through hell for a while, and it took a lot of effort to understand the rules and what my options were so I could advocate for myself and my family. I guess in the end we were some of the lucky ones. At least we are for right now.
Good luck getting yours sorted out.
January 28th, 2010 @ 2:43 pm
The cost of COBRA is why I took early retirement when I got laid off. Half of my unemployment would have gone to COBRA payments. I still don’t have dental or prescriptions, though.
January 28th, 2010 @ 3:22 pm
It’s kind of too bad that publishers can’t get together and offer all of their authors something better than COBRA. I mean really, that’s got to be a *huge* block of contract employees, right? You would think some insurance company out there might be willing to take that on…
And COBRA leader bickering with Destro over benefits – HEE!
January 28th, 2010 @ 3:32 pm
Yeah, I realize we’re not alone with this problem.
But Mindy, am I to understand that you think publishers treat us as contract employees and/or give us insurance? Because that isn’t the case at all. They don’t even withhold taxes from our payments; we’re responsible for all of it ourselves. I do not know a single author anywhere whose publisher pays for their health insurance.
Our insurance came through my husband’s job, but he left that job to start something else … and the something else does not come with insurance.
January 28th, 2010 @ 5:35 pm
How about making that a platform for John Scalzi — trying to get coverage through the SFWA?
Yes, I am clueless of the SFWA and it’s inner workings. As far as I know they could offer it already but at higher rates than COBRA.
January 28th, 2010 @ 8:29 pm
I know as an illustrator, the Illustrator’s Guild, and I think the Graphic Artists Guild among others, offer insurance to members, I don’t see why the SFWA couldn’t conceivably do the same. Though again, like Steve, I don’t know the nitty-gritty.
January 29th, 2010 @ 10:38 am
Hey Cheri!
Nope – I guess I knew that they don’t treat y’all as actual contractors, although I did not know that they didn’t even withold taxes and send 1099’s to authors. That seems odd… But it just seems that since they probably have plans for the folks that work in their offices, that there should be some way to add in people who they pay for the products that allow them to have those offices, ya know?
I guess the bottom line is that the system is broken, has been broken for a long time, and really needs a good butt-whooping. Sigh.
February 1st, 2010 @ 3:14 pm
COBRA what a scam. Two years ago when I left Comcast, I was offered COBRA. As a single man with no kids I was paying $410.00 a month. I found out later I could have gotten the same coverage for about $ 250.00 from an independent company. Thank God now I am married and my wife Melissa works at a hospital, so I get good coverage (Not great.) via her. Good luck with your dentist. Might as well pay a little now….