My wife and I work at my law office, and have for many years. Im not sure we qualify as small business under the terms I hear bandied about these days, but I KNOW we are small business nevertheless. Ive heard much grouching about the ACA and so I did some checking. In the last 16 years, before each of us qualified Medicare and got the best government-controlled Supplement we could, weve tossed in over $161k towards health insurance. Those 16 years featured all of it being with the same well known health carrier that wed been with since before 1993 when we found we were in that category of folks that carriers either: a) did not particularly want to cover; or b) would just as soon dump from coverage. In 93, 94, we each had conditions that, if wed even tried to migrate to another carrier, the old pre-existing thing would have knocked us out of the box. Paying our own way, not working for a company that might have had some clout with the carrier, we were essentially stuck to keep doing business with our old carrier. That old carrier, during that 16 years, was at something like $345+ a month until they topped out with us at something like $1,350 a month at the time we qualified Medicare. I also know that, as we were paying all along, we were paying a good deal beyond the amounts other folks were paying simply because we were not in a so-called bona fide group or pool of insureds. Somehow, folks who might work for larger companies might not get this, perhaps because they are able to have an employer who carries some clout and can get them cheaper coverage AND in with a waiver on pre-existing(s), but the fact is that coverage for the self-employed, given the terrain such folks face, is pretty dicey stuff. One horrid economic spell, brought on by things like a major health problem, recession as we have seen, such a thing can wipe out a self-employed person to where those large monthly premiums might get unpaid, and then what? Luckily, Nancy and I could avert that from happening. But, others with pre-existings might not have been so fortunate. This wipe out scenario, by the way, happened to many many good people who had pre-existings and were left high and dry by their uncaring carriers. I also have to ask myself this: Had we had a doomsday scenario, missed a monthly premium or two, what the heck would our carrier have done? Had compassion? I think not. Instead, it would have been first in line to claim Gotcha folks, youre now officially off our risk list. NOW, WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR FOLKS OUT THERE WHO FAVOR BIG INSURANCES BASHING OF THE ACA TO PLEASE LET ME KNOW EXACTLY HOW BIG INSURANCE WAS OUT THERE PROTECTING FOLKS LIKE US, AND WHY I SHOULD RESENT THE COMING OF THE ACA AS THEY SEEM TO DO? By the way, the ACA is not for folks such as Nancy and me--not since we got to Medicare--but I still feel that, as citizens, we really owe it to our fellow citizens not to be subject to being dumped by their private insurance carriers--no matter how misinformed or misled they might be about the ACA.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 21:36:30 +0000
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