| For many years, my husband and I were living the "American
Dream". My husband held a Director-level position with a
Fortune 100 company. We made the kind of income that
allowed me to stay at home and
raise our three children. Along with salary and bonuses,
health insurance was provided generously by my husband's
employer. I rarely had to think about health
coverage, much less worry about it.
Then, the corporate
security blanket fell apart. My husband's company was
bought out by another...then came the down-sizing. He negotiated a
severance package, and left the company - and all its benefits.
He then decided that running his own company - with me as his
only employee - was a great idea.
For over a year, our health insurance was provided through
COBRA. When COBRA ran it's 18-month course, we began to
look at health insurance options. We thought this
would be an easy process - just like selecting a plan at the
"big company".
| We were wrong... So begins the journey...
The first big challenge in the process was finding a good
insurance agent who would work with an individual or "mom-n-pop" companies.
Many
won't. If an agent does talk with you, don't be
surprised if they bolt if you mention any of you or your family's
pre-existing conditions. It took weeks before I found
an agent who was not scared off
because of a few pre-existing (and by the way, unserious)
conditions.
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We managed to secure a policy with one of the larger small
group health plan providers (and only because we did not
disclose all pre-existing conditions). We then proceeded to
treat the insurance just as we did while we were covered by a
large group plan.
That is - we ran all the doctor's
visits and all our
prescriptions through the policy.
Then something interesting happened at renewal time...Our policy premiums went through the roof.
When I calculated the exact increase, then looked at the cost
figures we, and the insurance company, were paying on
prescriptions, it all became clear...
The insurance company was raising the cost of our
premiums in almost exact proportion to what they were
paying on our prescriptions.
And on top of that - our insurance company now
knew
about our prescription use
and medical history, so there was no way
to rewind the clock to get a better rate.
Our only choice - change insurance carriers. And figure
out how we could access prescriptions without having it significantly change our insurance
premiums.
Please continue on the journey by clicking here to go to
It's A COMPANY...
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