Schmealth Care

I just got finished listening to a fascinating interview with Jonathan Oberlander on NPR’s Fresh Air. I encourage all of you to give it a listen.
I, personally, have been dying to see Sicko (haven’t yet) partly because I, personally, have been bit in the butt this year by the escalation of health care costs. Actually every year has been a slow escalation since I’ve been at this job.

A brief history:

- I started with 100% employer-paid-for coverage. (Ridiculous! I know. But it was a very small company and most of the employees were young, healthy people with no children)
- The following year we got a traditional plan that called for a monthly pay-in by employees. A negligible sum I guess cause I can’t even remember it.
- Third year was the short-lived “supplemental(?)/Consumer driven?” plan. No monthly charges but a high-ish deductible ($500 for a single). However, once this was paid, the employer matched a similar deductible and then after that everything was covered. Luckily I spent the majority of my pregnancy during this year.
- Looks like I wasn’t the only one that figured that one out. Crazy plan was dropped and we were shuttled into the world of traditional health care. My Blue Cross Blue Shield plan for me and my family was $389 per month. That was for the HMO plan so we had to find new doctors. (PPO? Close to $800 a month)
- This year, same plan as last but the costs increased by almost $200 a month, which means I essentially got a pay cut, as Lakeview Joe recently pointed out.

I would be interested to hear other people’s health care stories….