Health Insurance 4 the Homesteader??
 

How does one get/buy health insurance living on homebased income? I don't want Gov insurance. Why empower the :censored:. I got a quote for 150 a month w/ a 5k deductable.:shocked:

That's pretty cheap if it's decent coverage. We're retired, but too young for Medicare...insurance is running us nearly $800/month.

Health insurance is costing my DW and i almost $800 per month, and that's half of the total cost. My old employer pays the other half. It is good insurance with low deductibles and low copays. Last year, I had major surgery. The total cost was aprox $43,000 and my total out of pocket was $1250.

Plan for old age.......Obama cannot fix healthcare costs.

Sadly, what you "don't want" but can afford when it comes to wanting to get decent healthcare coverage may be one in the same........ Gov insurance
The time I was looking for heath insurance I found that comparing heathcare plans (for the individual) is like trying to pick out good-looking/ripe fruit blindfolded and with a stuffy nose, you choose what you think fits your idea of coverage and then hope you never need to use it cause you may have guessed wrong.

private insurance here through BCBS. we pay about 600$ a month with a 1k deductable for myself and two kids. $15 copays and pays some of prescriptions. complicated labor and delivery cost us our max out of pocket which was somewhere in the neighborhood of $6000....which significantly contributed to putting us in a spiraling hole of debt. better than the full bill of near $30,000.

check out any plan carefully and be realistic about your level of comfort with risk, both financial and healthwise. don't think you are immune to health problems. they come at the worst of times. any high deductable or out of pocket limit is a gamble. to some it's worth the gamble and to others its not. It usually quickly becomes not worth the gamble when you are looking at the bills after laying in a hospital bed for a week.,

We pay 20% of our income for insurance. (high deductible because lower would be 25% of our income!)
I agree with Jokarva. What you found is pretty cheap for self-pay.


THIS is why so many farmer's organizations supported the Health Care Bill, btw.

If you are in good health and are a Christian, you might want to consider Christian Medi-Share. Their entry requirements are a bit stringent, but it is a 100% pay after you satisfy the deductible (member share). I am 62 and traditional insurance with a 1500 ded would cost me upwards of $600.00 a month and a maximum out of pocket around $5000. I pay $316.00 with a $1250. deductible from Medi-share and they pay for everything above the $1250. deductible except long-term meds. I think a single person in their 30's pay $145.00 with a $1250. deductible. Not a bad deal at all.

Years ago I checked around and bought my health insurance through Farm Bureau... it was actually blue cross blue shield and cost me 127 per month... with a 2500 deductible. As time went on I finally had to increase the deductible to keep the monthly premium affordable. If you can get a good reliable company today for 150 a month I would jump on it. My premiums had gotten to over 650 a month by the time I finally wound up on medicare. Its costing me 150 or so a month now for additional coverage just to pick up the slack that medicare doesnt cover.

I cannot stress strongly enough that the cost of health insurance goes up to ridiculous levels as you get older. Someone at 30 saying they have a great low cost policy is MEANINGLESS. I'm in good health and my individual $7,500 deductible policy is over $250/mo, and this is not a high rate area like south Florida or New York.

If you can get govt insurance, don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Just who do you think got us into this mess? You don't need to pay some insurance company making record profits, just to prove your point.

I would really check out that cheap policy. My husband and I are both very healthy, no meds or health problems at all (I am 52 and he is 62). Currently we're paying $500 a month for a high deductible policy through his work (includes our two college age kids too), and that is only half of what the policy costs - employer pays the other half. I can't imagine what kind of coverage you'd get for for $150 a month and $500 deductible - probably not much, better to save your money and keep yourself healthy.

I agree with houndlover, you arent going to get an el cheapo policy thats legit (and will actually pay) unless it has some absolute crazy deductible that you would have to be Daddy Warbucks to be able to pay.

I'd take govt insurance in a heartbeat. But we wont see universal single payer insurance in USA until the current system collapses totally. Its well on its way to collapse where it gets too expensive for companies to offer as a benefit and too expensive for individuals other than very weathy to buy. Easy to be mr. super conservative hero and say you want to see super high corporate medical provider profits (cause corporations are people too).... until its your family that is sick and either you cant afford private insurance or your private insurance company refuses to pay.

Being painfully blunt, if you don't have any attachable assets then you don't need health care insurance. That being the case, if you racked-up $50,000 in medical bills tomorrow they aren't going to get it, because you don't have it. Depending on which state you live in, they probably can't take your house or your car, so they are out of luck.

Don't feel badly about it. It happens all the time. Just send them a letter saying not to contact you any more, then the statute of limitations will expire the debt in a few years.

Of course if you have assets (stock, savings, summer home, boat, etc.) then you will want health care insurance to protect those assets.

and hope you dont need an organ transplant or something drastic like that...

While I admit that health insurance provides access to services that indigents don't sometimes get, you just might get that transplant as an indigent.

But my 85 year-old friend has private health care insurance, and there's no way they would pay for an organ transplant for her.

Actually, this is very true. Think of health insurance as a way to protect non-exempt assets. The truth is you don't get a lot better care with health ins vs without health ins. In fact, because doctors and hospitals have to dance for the ins companies, it is usually worse care. So, unless you have assets that are non-exempt from collection efforts, health ins helps health care providers more than the insured.

It wouldn't matter if you had insurance or not.... Organ transplants aren't usually covered because they are considered experimental surgery. That's why so many have to raise the money on their own to get that type of care.

Right! and those "savings" will be passed along to the next patient.... who pays their own bill along with someone elses.... I get a little irritated at times when people go round encouraging people to steal from others.

He said it was a $5,000 deductible. Not $500. And if he's in the 25-45 range, $150 is pretty good for a single man, but not out of the question for a high deductible...
Our insurance (group, not self pay), that we get through DH's work, charges $162 for his portion. He's a 37 year old smoker, btw and we have a lower deduc.

Unless you have been in a situation where paying a several hundred thousand dollar medical bill and having a family member with a horrible illness, you have no idea how hard this can be. I have seen people who have worked hard all their lives become seriously ill, and rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills that they have no chance to pay. The only thing they can do is try to survive.

My sister had cancer, did the traditional western treatment, and reached her half-million dollar limit within a year. Would you rather people simply just die? It's not that easy of a situation when people are in it. If they are gasping for air, cannot breath, have no hope and no insurance the only thing they can do is just survive. They loose all their savings, they have shame and fear because bill collectors call them over and over. They are sued, treated like dirt, and in pain and dying. They worry about their children having food and a place to live. They worry about buying groceries versus gas for going to treatments over and over. They worry about paying for oxygen at $600 a month because they cannot breath and are in pain without it. They want to be well, but hope to die quickly to ease the pain and save their families the pain of financial disparity.

There is no reason for those people to be shamed. They are simply people trying to get by just like everyone else. It's like that saying about "never judge someone until you walk a mile in their moccasins". They aren't thieves stealing from you or trying to hurt you. They are simply people trying to survive.

That's not the way it works. Medical bills are inflated (actually multiplied by 2 to 3 times) so that bad debts can be collected in the form if tax credits.

Here's how it works. Let's say an ambulance company needs to get $350 for a local transport to show a profit. They bill $1000 for the transfer, but will accept $350 from an insurance company to settle the bill. But if the patient has no insurance and doesn't pay the bill they will turn the entire $1000 over to the IRS as an noncollectable debt. If the ambulance company's tax rate is 35% then they save $350 off their tax bill for the bad $1000 debt.

No. You are irritated because you don't want ordinary people to know what corporations and lawyers already know. There's nothing wrong with letting ordinary people know how the system works.

Plan ahead for old age. Republicans are trying there best to dismantle Medicare. Don't count on it being there.

If you're in the ag business, this means you'll be paying a premium up until the day you die.

I don't get it. We pay into an insurance plan our entire lives, then republicans try to end the plan when we go to retire; even suggesting that people on Medicare are freeloaders. Doesn't the fact that we paid for it count for anything?

Ouch!

Yes they will get it,because the rest of us taxpayers will pay it for them,with our high premiums,taxes and our own excessively high medical bills.

Just like the illegals,they use our Dr's,hospitals and clinics.Walk out not paying a dime, and the rest of us foot the bill.If we taxpayers were the only ones using the facilities,our premiums and bills would be much less.Just like uninsured motorist ins,they don't have any, so we have to purchase it for them, in order to protect ourselves, in case they harm us or ours.

If it weren't for republican opposition we would probably have a public option today, and be well on our way to establishing a single-payer system. There is no dispute about that, since republicans proudly take credit for killing the public option.

So why did they oppose the public option? Well, what we heard was death panels, constitutionality, and cost. I suspect it was none of those.

The truth is that a public option would have taken a huge bite out of the insurance industry, as well as profits for the corporate medical community, since price controls were on the table. And we know that the insurance and medical industries were very concerned about that, as evidenced by the huge amount of lobbying money committed during the health care debate. I think there is no realistic question that the public option was opposed to protect insurance and medical profits.

So you see, you can't take credit for killing the public option, then deny responsibility for it a few months later. It doesn't work that way. Republicans sided with corporate America, and against the American people. They wanted to keep the health insurance industry intact & preserve medical profits, and republican supporters around the country sided with them. Pointing out that fact is not bashing, it's just saying what happened in plain language.

Yes, that's exactly true. It's the universal health care plan that we have in place today, yet nobody talks about it.

But it's also why universal health care wouldn't cost much more than the government pays for health care today. Universal health care is just a way to get citizens to contribute more to their health care costs in a more structured manner.

Thank you, thank you, thank you !!!!!!!

The problem with this theory is that many places, the hospital is only required to stabilize patients that show up in the emergency room with no insurance and no assets. You have some long drawn out disease such as some cancers or a heart condition or something like that and you arent going to get treatment since you are considered stable and not in any immediate medical threat. Now if you come in, shot up by some homeboys, and you will get all kinds of care. Cause its necessary in order to stabilize you. Now if you are in last stages of some drawn out disease and show up, well they will stabilize you, probably morphine, but they avoid expense of further treatment cause its too late.

Course private insurance doesnt guarantee you anything. If you need some expensive treatment and dont look like you will survive that long without it, they will deny coverage. You have couple months to live without such treatment. Well your court case against the insurance company will come up for trial in 2 years..... I call it the CORPORATE DEATH PANELS.... What a great system!

My neice died last year from liver failure. she had insurance but their was a
mix-up and they couldnt verify it in time (amazingly, my brother chooses not
to sue for this). When they were waiting in the ER he asked them what happens to people w/o insurance and was told, "They dont get transplants!"

This is why I believe people should advocate getting insurance, not advocate having no insurance. With good insurance coverage people get the care they need, the bills get paid, there is no shame, there is no bill collectors, and there is no loss of savings... which really isnt a loss at all... people choose to spend their savings on whatever they want... to me... it would be insurance.

Perhaps you should read our Constitution sometime... you would then understand better how Obamacare is in direct violation of that set of laws. You may also want to have a look at the financial position our government is currently in.... two trillion dollar deficits, 14 trillion dollars worth of debt now, and climbing at 2 trillion a year.... so yes, adding another trillion a year to the tax payers burden is a valid issue. Well, it is to those of us who would like to see our country survive.

This is just not true. **I** had allegedly great, solid gold insurance, which I never used - I was always very healthy - which cost us $900/month, and my DHs employer was paying the other half. For close to 20 years they got huge premiums. The only thing I ever used it for was the occasional general checkup.

Fast forward 20 years and I am diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. Well - let me tell you that two months after that diagnosis our half of the premium went up to $1500 and they refused to pay anything towards the round of chemo I had - apparently my oncologist didn't know that treatment wasn't really necessary, while a bean counter did. With my DH now being only employed on an as-needed basis that premium is just not doable. I am now seeing the hematologist on a self pay basis, which is relatively affordable, but should I need another round of chemo I will probably be SOL.

Mary

I don't recall anyone making a constitutional argument about Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, VA, government employees, or the congressional health care coverage. Now suddenly it's an issue. Sorry, but that's disingenuous.

I suspect that the government providing a single-payer system will not only happen some day, but will also be found to be constitutional. The mandatory provision in the current health care might be unconstitutional, but I still believe that the government providing health care is constitutional.

Evidently some do.

"Arizona Governor Jan Brewer proposed a way to fund vital organ transplants, three months after the state became the only one in the U.S. to stop paying for them to cut Medicaid spending."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...-protests.html

There is a lifetime cap on insurance policies. Do you realize how fast a serious illness can reach that cap? A $100,000 is a 2wk hospital stay or less. A $500,000 cap can be reached in less than a year if someone is seriously ill. And then the calls for collections start. If someone has a heart attack, has bypass, stays in the hospital a week then has followup care, they can reach their cap. So what are they supposed to do for the rest of their lives? Just die and get out of the way? They can still live another 20yrs, but will need medical care at times.

And under the Western Medicine's cancer plans...... You wouldn't believe how fast someone can end up with a half million dollars of bills. And the thing is, they go into remission, but it eventually comes back in the liver and lungs for many types of the disease. Then they are almost out of ins, and out of hope, but still need treatment for palliative care. What are they supposed to do? Say, well your lungs collapsed, so you need surgery but you reached your cap, so it's better to just let you die like this in pain gasping for air.

You have no idea how hard that is on people. Insurance really doesn't matter in those cases because they reach their caps anyway. And, no, the bills probably never get paid. But palliative care is still the right thing to do whether it ticks off people or not.

I'm a firm believer in medical tourism. carry insurance for medical emergencies as for proecedures (hips, joints, hearts etc) travel overseas. india, thailand, even gasp china, has some of the best medical care in the world and extremely cheap. figuring in a vacation and plane trip in the cost it still comes in much cheaper than what you would spend on the typical insurance policy every year and the care is much more individualized and you are actually treated like a person.

Ok I'm 47 and single. To be self employed I need health insurance. If I get sick I don't want to lose everything. Sounds to me ya'll are telling I'm D**ned no matter what.
So if i get cancer instead of fighting it I should go out to the back 40 and bite a bullet?

I'm not telling you to do that, but an insurance company might.