I’m lucky that we have decent coverage – nothing great but at least we’re not going broke over our medical costs.

But I worked at a children’s cancer hospital for 8 years – one that covered ALL the costs for the families. And the horror stories I encountered from the families that happened back at their local hospitals. The kid needed a bone marrow transplant, but the hospital wanted $50K UP FRONT. Families that mortgaged their homes in hopes of saving their child’s life. It’s just so wrong.

I have a cold too, and my OB grudgingly said I could take Sudafed to help me sleep. Soooo magical. Last night was the first night in two weeks I haven’t woken up with a hacking cough at 4 AM.

I totally agree about health care. I have what I think is a great plan. We do have some copays, $15 for visits, $10 for drugs, but my prenatal is all free, and up until the baby is 1. My daughter takes brand-name asthma inhalers, and I am usually on birth control and a nasal spray all the time, so I love my drug coverage. Until we depleted our budget surplus recently, the benefits were the best reason for keeping my stinky job. ‘Course, now I need the paycheck too, but even that is ridiculously good considering how little work I actually do.

I’ve been on both sides of the have and have not.
After my divorce when my son was 6 months old I started out working at a hospital and had excellent medical bennies. I worked in healthcare at different clinics/hospitals for the next 12 years and have always been truely LUCKY to have my son and myself covered. Then my life turned upside down, everyone died, lost my job and moved to a new town. No insurance for myself but thankfully my son was covered by our state medicare. I work at a nationally known real estate company… but because they are franchises… the owner chooses to pay for medical or not… mine chooses not to! Then I met and married my husband and fortunately he his work has even better health care coverage, plus dental and vision too and so we are all three covered for a very minimal price! Thank god cause I’m headed for surgery next week!
But get this… just a month ago I get a letter from, and decided to call Child Support Enforcement to find out WHY they were JUST NOW ( my son is now 18 ) insisting that my EX pay for medical… they told me that they can’t enforce child support (the boy is still in school) without enforceing medical coverage too…. because it was court ordered…. 17 years ago ! I just laughed and asked WHY it hadn’t been enforced for the last 17 years…. she stuttered and couldn’t tell me why… only that they were enforcing it NOW! I read in the paper about the big Audit the next week!

VOTE FOR CHANGE!

It’s amazing that *gasp* there might be other chronic conditions, other than depression, that require daily meds ;).

Which provides a segue into talking about health insurance. At this point, prozac is available as a generic and is $4 at Wal-Mart. However, when I was working for a small company with no benefits and an equally low salary, it was $150 a month. A number of health plans pick and choose what depression drugs they cover – prozac is usually a choice, but some of the newer ones are not. My current insurance doesn’t pay for shit in the way of preventive care, copays are $30, and a lot of medications are not covered or are only partially covered (I sometimes have to take an antibiotic for a skin condition, and the shit is $119 even as a generic with a 30% of the cost covered). And they don’t cover most birth control, either.

PS – What Michael Moore demonstrates in the movie about pre-existing conditions and private insurance is true. When we tried, at the small employer, to get a small-group plan, they won’t cover 12 months of treatment, and with the cheap ass-ness of the employer, they wouldn’t pay for the premiums. Basically, I would have had to pay $250 a month PLUS the $150 prescription, and I couldn’t afford it – so I was uninsured. In addition, the company quoted us a rate of $125 a month, but when they found out I was fat, my co-worker had had cancer, and the other co-worker had a chronic intestinal problem – the premiums doubled.

Ugh.