Health Insurance Clarification…

I really appreciate the advice my readers gave about health insurance. I’m going to research the COBRA assistance program (I didn’t even know it existed). I also didn’t think about getting health coverage through his school. After some research, I discovered his school does cover basic medical services, radiology, laboratory services, injections, prescriptions, physical therapy, and limited urgent care at a greatly reduced cost (we pay a fee with his tuition for this service but have never used it). A hearty THANK YOU for the ideas!!!

We should be able to qualify for the COBRA assistance based on the requirements of the layoff date and I’m hoping to be able to combine this coverage with the reduced cost services at his school.

If in the crazy event, the COBRA assisted coverage doesn’t work out. We’ll have to go without. As I said before, the money simply isn’t there – but we are fortunate to have at least something through his school. Yes, my husband could possibly suffer an illness not covered by the student hospital that could cost thousands of dollars but if we chose to pay for health insurance and skip our mortgage payments we would SURELY default on our loan and our home value is 135K less than we could sell it for.

Possible health problem OR definite mortgage default and foreclosure resulting in a 135K shortfall.

At this time…it’s an easy decision.

Thank you Gina for the reminder. The student hospital will really help us in the event something happens. And thank you to those who opened my eyes about the COBRA assistance. I had no idea!!

Posted by Beks on October 21, 2009 at 9:51 PM in health | 5 Comments »
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KMGaul responded:
Posted: October 21st, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I’m not sure if this is still the case, but I thought I remembered many moons ago that you could retroactive COBRA. i.e. you have something like three months to elect coverage and if you do it retroacts.
Valeria responded:
Posted: October 22nd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
There’s another alternative to this – you can purchase a catastrophic coverage policy, one that only kicks in once the bill hits $10K or more. That means you deal with routine care on a cash basis, but if something major happens, your exposure is limited. You can, in time, pay off $10K to $25K – $250K bills are what ruins people. The downside is dealing with anything under the threshold – the upside is you pay less for the insurance and know that a major illness or accident will be covered
Dogfood Provider responded:
Posted: October 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 pm
It’s pretty cool how much passion your last post raised, and even cooler that your commenters were able to be helpful!

That advice about student health is great – when I was in grad school I took advantage of it. Lots of things like flu shots and preventative check ups were straight up free. Free is my kind of fee!
mv responded:
Posted: October 23rd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
I’m confused about the need for COBRA coverage. If I recall you work in gov’t, don’t recall which level. Doesn’t you’re job provide insurance? Even if it’s not open enrollment period, the situation you are in would more than likely qualify as a life-altering event, which allows for enrollment outside of the open enrollment period.

With regards to COBRA – if you and you’re husband are healthy, with no pre-existing conditions, you may want to consider individual insurance. COBRA premiums can be very, very expensive as you pay both the employer and employee portions of the premium. For example, if I were to lose my job, the COBRA monthly payment would be between $600 and $800 per month for health/dental/vision, and I’m single, I’ve no idea how much it would be for employee+dependent(s). In previous jobs where I was laid off, the COBRA premiums were $350 – $450. I’m one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have a pre-existing condition that would bar me from purchasing individual health insurance. If I elected to do this, for health-care alone it would cost me less than $200 per month, and some individual plans also include dental and/or vision (although rare). Several years ago, when I was laid off, the COBRA premium was about $450, or slightly higher. I was able to get individual coverage for less than $150 – huge savings. Of course, this was indiviudal PPO and didn’t cover certain events, such as pregancy. But since I wasn’t planning on popping out a kid, I was fine with it. HMO coverage covering pregnancy would’ve been about $380…in which case, I would’ve kept the COBRA coverage.

Something to think about – there are options available, besides COBRA. In my opinion, COBRA is best if there is a pre-existing condition preventing the purchase of individual insurance.
My Frugal Miser responded:
Posted: October 24th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Good to hear you’ve come to your senses. I’ve never been unemployed until I lost my job 7 weeks ago. Learning a lot about what my real priorities need to be. I rarely need to see a doctor, but I’m not willing to gamble with not having insurance and risk being indebted the rest of my life due to some unforeseen ailment.