“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose
was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”
-- Dalí --
----------------------------------------------------------
was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”
-- Dalí --
----------------------------------------------------------
An observation on the deterioration of health insurance: Back in the late '60s and early '70s, if my doctor prescribed aspirin, my insurance paid for it. Same with any OTC meds and supplements. There were NO copays or deductibles. No premiums other than what the employer paid. Once when I was hospitalized, in 1970, I was covered by two insurance plans - my employer's and Ex#1's employer's - and both paid in full. I was worried that it was a mistake, but both companies said no, that it was ok, and if I had money left over I could keep it. "If it makes you feel better, use it for costs associated with time off work, pet care, bed jackets to wear in the hospital, whatever."
In the '80s, Daughter was covered under my policy with The Company, and under her father's (Ex#2's) policy, also with The Company. Although by then coverage had been reduced (we had copays and deductibles, and no double payments), because she was covered under both, one policy covered the copays and deductibles on the other, so she was covered 100%.
Compare that to now.
--------------------------------
Something else to compare then to now: Under those health plans, for everything except hospital charges, you had to pay the bills and submit the receipts for payment. Ex#2 and I were divorced, and I had full custody. I took Daughter to the doctor, paid all the bills, filled out the forms, and submitted the receipts to my plan, with Ex#2's plan as secondary payer.
The Company cut the checks, and sent them to him! Not me! And he, of course, never notified me that he'd received any checks. He cashed or deposited them without a blink, without a word to me. Since all the paperwork from The Company went to him, too, I had no idea that payment had been made, or for how much. I had to call Human Resources and ask. And that SOB often claimed he'd never received the checks (not out of meanness - he'd just "forget", and he was a tightwad and didn't want to give me any money).
I was furious with The Company. They said it was company policy to send checks to the father, regardless of court dispositions, regardless of who paid the bills and submitted the claims. It took me more than a year and the threat of a sexual discrimination suit to get them to change the policy, and even then the policy applied only to me, and only because I was also a Company employee. I wondered how many other non-employee women weren't getting their checks and had no recourse, had to beg their exes for the insurance checks.
Compare that to now.
People now seem to think calling a woman a feminist is some kind of insult. They don't know what it was once like, and how hard it was to change the rules.
.
4 comments:
The best insurance plan I can get now costs me $335 / mo, plus co-pays, plus a $2,500 deductible. Per year.
That's why I don't have health insurance.
You know you're supposed to be putting that $335/mo in a saving-for-medical-just-in-case account, right?
(Yeah, I know, snork....)
Before I qualified for Medicare, The Company's retiree medical plan cost me $197/mo, with a $5,000 deductible. This was after having been promised FREE lifetime medical care after retirement at the time I retired. They invoked the "...may be changed any time at the sole discretion of The Company..." clause - which they had also promised not to do. Said promise was never in writing, of course.
When D. was hurt at the Boy Scout camp when he was 10 (jumped off a slide, lacerated his spleen, internal bleeding), the Scout camp had "supplemental" insurance to cover what our own insurance didn't cover. At the time, we had no insurance. There were $2000 in bills not covered by the scout camp insurance, which was capped at $25,000. That's $25,000+ in medical bills for a 4 day stay at Albany Medical Center, ambulance transportation to Columbia Hospital and then to Albany, 2 CT scans, x-rays, etc. It took more than a year for another insurance company to contact me to say they would pay the balance of the $2000 which wasn't covered. I was calling the scout camp regularly, and insisting that they were responsible for ALL of the medical bills because it happened on their property, regardless of how much insurance they had. They kept invoking the "insurance cap" and saying I had to pay the balance. Buggers!
Post a Comment