I fortunately paid my monthly premium yesterday for my health insurance, never knowing that today Hubby found out from an email that I signed up with ABC Action News in Tampa Florida, for breaking news reports, a few years ago, as I did with CNN, and that is when he found out that his insurance company is now defunked! OUCH for…he and I… but once we got over the initial shock, going to their site: Universal Health Care and found out officially it would be done on Monday, April 1, 2013. Anyone with questions or needs new coverages can go to their site and if you follow through the prompts you will find the sites to go to according to where you live for Medicare established insurances: http://univhc.com/
Scary at first, but now Hubby is re-insured with Humana Gold Medicare for no additional premiums and very similar everything else! He checked with Blue and Blue and AARP, but Humana was the best all round.
In retrospect, most of us know that the healthcare in this country has had problems for years; but that said we are not alone in the world. That’s one of the best parts of the international awakening on Facebook, many expound on their situations not unlike here in the US with their healthcare systems, even those countries will socialized medicine that as Americans some feel could be the answer to our problems, but not from what I have heard through those who have it. We all seem to suffer from the grass is always greener syndrome, hmm? If only…
We, as a nation, need to find a better way, and the only good that came from this experience was that Hubby found out his heart is working just fine! And I am more than thankful for that!
All kidding aside, it would be wonderful if we had a simple answer. But it is in my head and mind that the gouging has got to stop, doctors over bill, accepting percentages, what’s with that and pharmaceuticals companies charge ungodly prices, but somehow have freebie programs for the ones of us that squeak the wheel the loudest? Medicaid fraud and Medicare fraud have been rampant, in my opinion that is where so much of the expense of healthcare has gone.
We as consumers should question everything and not allow over charges and ask for itemized bills to go over with a fine tooth comb. It is our responsibility to be our own watchdogs!
I will never forget when I was uninsured just a few months ago, but go back a couple of years from that when I used Walgreen’s Options for my in home IV steroids that were four hundred dollars for me being uninsured and the nurse was $90 a day to install my IV doing that dose for the day and to teach me how to change the medication out for the next two days, she was from a separate company than Walgreen’s. Yet, with Hubby being insured his insurance covered him having a nurse’s visit a couple times a year, and this was with Universal Health Care and the bill for that was $212 for her checking his vitals and she was from the same company as mine… I remember noting that from her card! And so Hubby called the insurance company, even though the visit was covered and he complained telling him about the discrepancy, and you know what they said? They are under contract with them and that there was nothing they could do about it!
Well, there you go, being gouged, has its price.
Being concerned and doing something can be two different things. Advocacy for anything we care about is more than signing a petition, for me, with the my MS it is an online direct access to our legislature and law makers by access through the National MS Society, all you do is put in your zip code and your representatives names pop up and there is either a form letter or a blank space for you to write your own letter with it going directly to your specific people in your district. Over the last few years it has given me a feeling of still doing something, although my abilities to physically respond volunteer wise has diminished, I feel very good about this… and get letters back from Senators and such and from the NMSA with info updates if our bills of concern have passed! Below is access to help if you too so desire…http://www.nationalmssociety.org/government-affairs-and-advocacy/index.aspx
On that note of an up note, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you kindly to count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!
And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?!