Insurance of any kind is so expensive. I am wondering how you all handle this problem of health insurance. Here in Nebraska we have an insurance program called CHIPS for people like me that can't be insured any other way. We also have a program to make our kids are insured. It is called Kids Connection(I think) I am not sure how we handle this problem if my husband quits or retires from the local hospital. Right now we have excellent insurance through them Our premiums will be going up. So how do you folks handle health insurance? I would hate to lose the farm over my health. We have worked so hard to keep it going. Thanks for any help. Cindy

-- Cindy Herbek (dh40203@navix.net), October 18, 2001

Answers

I do not have any health insurance..sigh...When I was working full- time and got sick, my illness just got worse and worse. I had health insurance through my employer. When the company went down the tubes, I could not get any insurance because I have alot of serious health problems now. I was offered Cobra coverage at a mere $625/month..right. I was able to get some bare bones coverage for our youngest child who is a full-time college student through "Celtic Insurance Company".. it costs $71/month and has a $5000 deductible for hospitalization, no prescription coverage and a $10 co-payment for a doctors' visit. We figured if he had to have an appendectomy, for example, we could afford to make payment arrangements with the hospital over time. My husband has medicare which is a blessing! Since we own our property free and clear, our nightmare is that should I need to be hospitalized for anything costly, we would have to mortgage the place or risk losing it..not a pretty picture....

-- lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), October 18, 2001.

My husband has health insurance on himself but not me, it's just too expensive, and since I can't take any medication/treatments that would be covered, it would just be a waste of money. His employer is considering a different insurer, maybe it won't be as expensive.

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony@countrylife.net), October 18, 2001.

My son has good insurance, but I do not.They want what I make in a month!I pray for good health.

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), October 18, 2001.

We are retired military and they set up a good insurance no matter what you hear the militart say. It use to be free but it is not any more so that is why you hear all the complaining. It is 460.oo a year then when you go to the doc it is 12.oo and when you get your meds is 9.oo if you need surgery you can go to a military hospital for free. I had my tubes tied at fort wood in missouri and did not pay a penny. Anyway they use to only let you have it till your 65 then you go on, oh I can't remember what it is called but it is the same thing as everyone gets when they are 65, but they just changed this so we have a choise and can stay with the military ins if we want. I don't think any other ins can beat this so I have not complaints at all. It is as good as it can get.

-- Teresa (c3ranch@socket.net), October 19, 2001.

This is a sore subject for me. When I had to quit work, I lost my insurance and had to go on my husbands plan. At the time it wasn't too bad and was a pretty good HMO. Has it changed! This past year, it DOUBLED in cost and the benefits went down! We kept it on me because of my health problems and I was afraid I might have to have more back surgery. Now they are saying the rates are going up again, we are now paying almost $300 a month just for me! I am eligible for medicare because of being disabled but because I'm disabled I do not have much choice in insurance companies and will be charged about double what anyone else is charged for a medigap policy. We can't afford not to have insurance. My first back surgeries were well over $100,000 - I was in the hospital for 4 weeks. That could wipe you out real quick if you had to pay it yourself. Anyone out there have any experience with medicare? Do they pay enough to take a chance of not having a medigap policy?

-- Barb in Ky. (bjconthefarm@yahoo.com), October 19, 2001.

We were on BCBS with Cobra for, I guess, a year after hubby's work in Amarillo(at a very reasonable rate). Unfortunately, we didn't know and weren't informed that we needed to do more paperwork then to keep it up, and ended up losing insurance for about 2 weeks. Also, since we were now off the insurance, we had to reapply for it, and they refused to cover one of my sons because of an "innocent" heart murmur. During this time, said son took a fall in which he fractured both bones in his left forearm through the skin. Yikes! That awful injury cost us $10,000 out of pocket!!..Hubby and I have always tried to at least have some kind of minimal coverage to cover just this type of unexpected thing. If you keep your deductible higher, sometimes you can get a decent rate.

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), October 19, 2001.

My husband has very good insurance! We only pay $32.00 a week and that's for 2 adults and 4 children!!!! We have 10.00 dr.visits and 5/10 perscriptions plus dental and vision!!! Most people I know are paying twice that just for 1 person and no vision or dental! The people he works for gets real good deals because they own several shops around the country.

-- Sandy(N.E.FL.) (REDNECKGIRL32@prodigy.net), October 19, 2001.

I work for the good old state of Indiana and I have excellent insurance. But the pay is horendous. I pay $21.00 every two weeks and it covers my whole family. I don't know what state you live in but I am sure they have something like hoosier healthwise to at least cover your kids. The incomes levels are a lot higher than you think it is 28,000 for a family of five. I know people don't care for the welfare system but its better than paying through your nose. For adults they have something called aflac that helps out with bills.

-- mindy (speciallady@countrylife.net), October 19, 2001.

Currently my dh and I don't have any, we were offered cobra at $750..0 per month also. The grandaughter has medicaid, and our son was just signed up with a state insurance, begins Nov. 1st, so at least the kids will be covered, dh is looking for a job mainly for the insurance, he can make a living just around here, but insurance is another story. I do have some health problems, so we just pray nothing happens until we get insurance, when we do go to the doc we pay cash and i ask for the same discount the insurance co.'s get.

-- Carol in Tx (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), October 19, 2001.

I had the same problem with the insurance from work, I dropped it when the cost to me went over $600 per month and that was a couple of years ago. The policy I have now is with Golden Rule,they have a number of different options available and are quite reasonable, you can do a search for them on the internet and get an online quote and compare different policys.

-- Jay in MO. (jay@townsqr.com), October 20, 2001.