I think that says it all.
The husband has a cracked tooth, it’s also one he recently had a root canal on, and was dealing with a temp cap until he could get through the surgery and other stuff that was a bit more important. The tooth is now cracked, and guess what….
the dental insurance he has through his company only covers up to 1000.00 worth of work a year. Go figure, the bad dental crap that led to us finding our current dentist and sorting out all the shit that the “bad dentist” did ate that coverage already. So here he is, looking at 900.00 out of pocket expense and not being able to get anything else done for the rest of the year…god forbid that something happens because right now we’re fucked on money to start with.
The cost of getting a round trip flight to the UK is not much more than the cost of the procedure here, and he could stay with family there and get it done for free.
When the fuck are people in this country going to stop letting insurance companies drag them around by the balls while we all die due to being unable to cover the things that we need to get done?
The kid and I have both been sick for the last week. His dad carries him on their insurance and for the most part they deal with making sure he gets all his shots and checkups. The doc they use is within walking distance of their house, and he’s an awesome pediatrician.
Their insurance changed recently, so the ex met me at the office when I took the kid in the other day. Guess what… More: Read the rest of this entry…
We sat down last night and had the discussion. With surgery and hospital bills looming in the near future, we made a list of all the things that we could cut out of the monthly budget that weren’t necessities. I know that insurance will cover a good portion of what’s coming, but it’s not going to cover it all, that’s the nature of the machine. In the end it would have been cheaper to pay for a 400.00 flight to the UK and have him stay with his parents until it was done, but that wasn’t realistic with his job and whatnot.
Do we need extra cable channels, netflix, games, etc…nope, even though we have always justified them as cheap alternatives to other activities. It is definitely cheaper to pay 10 bucks a month and get movies delivered to the house that we want to see than go spend somewhere in the 30 dollar range for the 3 of us to go out to a movie. The games are the big one, but we’re also looking at the time sink that they cause.
All together if we dump everything we don’t really need, including a land line into the house (we all have cell phones so not a big deal) we could save over 2k a year in expenses. It would also free up a lot of time that gets obligated to do other things together. There are a few variants that we’re looking at, but there are definitely some changes coming to the house.
Hubby is going in to have his thyroid removed next Friday, so we’re at the hospital today for scans, assorted tests and all that lovely insurance paperwork. Sitting here makes me appreciate being well, and makes me want to kick myself in the ass for not trying harder to exercise and get myself in shape. I didn’t help his mood last night by watching House either, but that’s another story.
With all of this in process, we’ve talked around the idea of heading to the UK at some point in the future, most likely after the kid is off on his own. I’m just amazed at the repeatative nature of getting things done here, every doctor or specialist we see has to get the info all over again, so we’ve gotten into the habit of asking for copies of all the records every time either one of us goes in for anything. The circulating idea of a centralized medical history would make so much of this process easier. I would also think it would save a lot in the long run because it wouldn’t be up to individuals to remember or selectively forget that they have done things in the past. Then again, it would also be a more accurate picture of what is being done in regards to different treatments and diagnosis, so I can definitely see where fudging things could be much more difficult.
So are people against this idea mainly because it’s a lot of work to get it up and running, or would it actually bring to light a lot of the crap that gets in the way of getting people the help they need and getting it covered by insurance?