$26,000 / Year /Family

$26,000 sounds about right to me. In our family business, the cost of health insurance for a worker and their family is around $12,000. When you throw in the extra costs for the already uninsured, the unemployed, and the people working minimum wage jobs another $14,000 sounds plausible.

Last year the insurance company lost money big time on my family. And all it took was one colonoscopy and an appendectomy.

The simple fact is that health care in this country is expensive..... and it's not just because of CEO's perceived high incomes.

If everyone's going to dance; someone has to pay the fiddler. If we go this route, I just hope we step up to the plate and pay as we go. I don't want to see the financial burden put on our children's backs as often happens when politics are involved.

i think the number sounds about right for right now for a family to have insurance, if you count the money that comes out of paychecks for insurance, deductibles, out of pocket costs, co-pays, etc. i know this year alone i have spent over $6,000 on health care for myself between insurance payments, deductibles, lab work and co-pays just from being pregnant and having some complications... and i haven't even given birth yet!!

i am beyond disappointed that the public option is gone, i truly think that was a huge mistake. nothing is going to get done with the health care in this country unless the power is taken away from the large insurance and pharmaceutical companies.... i really wish obama would have acted MORE like george bush in this instance and said "this is what we're doing, whether you like it or not"...

like i've said before, i don't mind paying extra taxes as long as health care improves and everyone is included in it... but everyone has to be willing to stop with the fear mongering that doctors and nurses are going to get paid nothing, the "i got my mine, the heck with everyone else" mentality and the unwillingness to admit that it is such a shame to live in the most prosperous nation in the country and have tax paying american citizens going bankrupt over health care.

call it anecdotal if you like, but recently a friend of mine from NY came down from grad school because she has not been feeling well. her mom works with my mom @ the local hospital as a nurse, she has a young
special needs sister, and her dad works at the local supermarket.. average middle class people. she is 24 years old, and although she is in college, she is not covered by her parents insurance plan any longer and did not get one of her own because she could not afford one and her tuition. her mom took her to the local clinic, where they paid out of pocket for her to be examined--only to find that she had a large what they thought to be a "goiter".... so they paid a bit extra for an ultrasound and lab work... and she was sent to the hospital for a stat MRI.

only, they wouldn't do the MRI without $3,000 up front since she did not have insurance, so her parents wrote a check and she had it done. not only did she have a malignant tumor on her thyroid, but one on her parathyroid, her collarbone, her esophagus and her larnyx.

she applied for medicaid and was denied--because technically, her parents income still counts, although she cannot be insured by them. she petitioned the hospital where her mom works and was able to get a surgeon to agree to do the surgery for a "set fee".

here's the best part. last week she had the surgery. she had not only four malignant tumors removed from her neck, but 7 cancerous lymph nodes, her thyroid, her entire parathyroid, and part of her larnyx and esophageal muscle... because the surgeon knew she couldn't pay, and the hospital is "not for profit", she was discharged LESS THAN 24 HOURS LATER the next day because the hospital's indigent program would not foot the bill, she did not qualify for medicaid, and the case manager and surgeon decided it would be better to send her home than for her family to go bankrupt. at least, by the grace of God, she's alive.

$26,000 might seem like a good deal to them. she now needs extensive radiation therapy for atleast 6 months as well as medications and supplements for the rest of her life... but first she has to pay for the surgery. she won't be able to work and good luck getting an individual insurance plan to someone with cancer for under $600 a month.....

Yanno ... when I first read about that insurance company report, I thought, "Sounds like a threat, to me ... ".

I wonder if the industry just shot itself in the foot.

We'll see ...

Anthony Weiner thinks so....

That $26,000 may have to be adjusted as time goes on. This is because of a couple of reasons;

A dangerous secret to the Baucus health bill

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/08/news...tune/index.htm

Two in a series: Hidden in the Senate's health-care bill are huge incentives for corporate America to stop covering their workers. If that happens, the deficit could skyrocket.

"The corporate exodus from health care would mean that the Baucus plan, far from reducing the deficit, would actually increase it, perhaps sharply."

And what abou the VALUE of the dollar? How much will it be worth come 2013?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...e-1798713.html

"The US government's debt – which stands at $11.86 trillion (£7.45trn) after tax revenues collapsed with the recession and the Treasury spent billions on propping up the banking system – would be easier to repay if the value of the dollar was lower. " (That explains some of it to me)

"Economists noted that the US resisted pressure to include a promise to protect the stability of world currencies in last weekend's communiqué from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), sparking growing concern that the Obama administration could be content to see the currency fall. That would make US exports more competitive and could spark a manufacturing jobs revival." (Maybe that is what they are thinking? But what will it do to us here at home? It takes more, much more to buy what we need.)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/33246832
(more here)

You know, someone on my facebook feed just posted that story about the baby being denied insurance because he was obese, dealt with in another thread on AN. Her status update read: "okay people, this is what you'll have to deal with when this 'healthcare reform' passes...". I thought to myself (but kept it to myself since this is someone I haven't seen in about a decade) "Um, aren't we already dealing with this thanks to for-profit insurance?" Hello?! Just because you and your family are fine (mine are too, actually) doesn't mean the rest of the nation is.

I had to hide her from my feed because I didn't want to say something I'd regret later.

<gasp>NO!<faint>

To borrow one of my great grandma's expressions, "I just had a touch of the vapors..."

Kathy
sharpeimom