Here's a fun game
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniGo here: http://www.anthem.com/health-insurance/plans-and-benefits/health-insurance-plan/ME
Click the blue button on the upper right corner that says Compare Quote Apply Online
Cancel the pop-up demanding a password; you don't need a password for this.
Fill in the form: zipcode is 04901 county is Kennebec Your applicant is male or female born on some date that you find felicitous in 1952. Your spouse is male or female, natal day sometime in 1950. No children. Hit the orange button at the bottom of the form that says Get A Quote.
Note that the rates you will receive on the next page will change (i.e. Go UP) on June 30.
Take a look at the offerings. Play with the drop-down boxes. Have a ball.
Note that Anthem is THE health insurance provider for individual policies in the state of Maine, unless you count the semi-scam MEGAhealth. Dirigo Health Care (created by the former governor of Maine to provide...more affordable... health insurance to individual and small (as in one or two or ten person) businesses), is in the process of being dismantled by Mayor LePage, so is no longer an option -- not that it ever was much of an option, as byzantine as its payment system was.
Now! Who wants to take the side that the insurance industry isn't freaking outta control?
Click the blue button on the upper right corner that says Compare Quote Apply Online
Cancel the pop-up demanding a password; you don't need a password for this.
Fill in the form: zipcode is 04901 county is Kennebec Your applicant is male or female born on some date that you find felicitous in 1952. Your spouse is male or female, natal day sometime in 1950. No children. Hit the orange button at the bottom of the form that says Get A Quote.
Note that the rates you will receive on the next page will change (i.e. Go UP) on June 30.
Take a look at the offerings. Play with the drop-down boxes. Have a ball.
Note that Anthem is THE health insurance provider for individual policies in the state of Maine, unless you count the semi-scam MEGAhealth. Dirigo Health Care (created by the former governor of Maine to provide...more affordable... health insurance to individual and small (as in one or two or ten person) businesses), is in the process of being dismantled by Mayor LePage, so is no longer an option -- not that it ever was much of an option, as byzantine as its payment system was.
Now! Who wants to take the side that the insurance industry isn't freaking outta control?
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 01:58 pm (UTC)Don't know if you saw the BDN graphic on LePage's healthcare "reform" the other day -- projection is that the new system will increase rates still more, outside of the Portland area.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 02:12 pm (UTC)Show of hands! Who believes that surcharge will remain at $4/month for more than a year?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 02:29 pm (UTC)http://bdn.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Insure0512.png
And the related article:
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/12/health/sweeping-health-insurance-changes-clear-legislature-%C2%A0/?ref=relatedBox
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 02:56 pm (UTC)Mayor LePage is deeply dismissive of people who live upcountry, which is actually *odd* in a lad from Lewiston. He thinks, for instance, that fixing the roads out to rural areas -- you know, where the people who have to come into the city to work, and shop live? -- is a waste of money. I hate to tell you what the main road out to my place looks like -- we're gonna lose a Ram truck in one of the potholes...
insurance/politics
Date: 2011-05-18 03:47 pm (UTC)Nanette
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 04:10 pm (UTC)SO not looking forward to being unemployed later this summer...
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 04:32 pm (UTC)I feel your pain. What was it that you said about the Maine artists doing a group plan a while back?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 04:41 pm (UTC)I said it would be nice if the Maine Arts Commission could get its act in gear to form a group, and make get Maine artists a break.
Not likely to happen, mind you, but it would be nice.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 04:54 pm (UTC)We pay an enormous amount of money for employer subsidized health insurance and until last year they refused to cover me for dental or vision because we aren't "married" even though we are registered domestic partners and thus (according to the employer's written policy and their contract with the insurance companies) entitled to the same coverage. That finally got fixed, but I think it took a lawsuit. Our rates go up on July 1 and the actual benefits go down. If it weren't for the cost of our prescriptions, I think we would do without anything but major medical.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 06:04 pm (UTC)So, while I know that there is a certain amount of hate on among some folks for "Obama's Health Care Reform," in this case -- not his fault.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 08:18 pm (UTC)And THAT is precisely what I was asking about the whole "mandatory health insurance" thing. My STEADY income - the stuff that comes in monthly - is LESS THAN THAT INSURANCE PREMIUM. Where am I supposed to find the money to pay the premium for mandatory health insurance? If they made it affordable, that's a different story - but they are NOT and they can't make it mandatory AND make it impossible at the same time. No, not even Holy Obama can't. Any health insurance premium of $300 or more and I. Am. Out. I don't have anywhere to pay that from.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 08:35 pm (UTC)I wouldnt mind paying a little more for Medicare, but we are lucky to have decent savings, after a life of denying ourselves any luxuries - like gym memberships or vacation trips. Not everybody would live like my husband, for whom, now, I am grateful.
Joan C.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 09:25 pm (UTC)I am self employed.
I pay a few pennies short of $1000 (yes, ONE THOUSAND) dollars a MONTH for health insurance. For just me, a single person.
That's just premiums -- I still have $100 to 250 a month in office and pharmacy copays (the plan that gets rid of those costs $1300 a month). Oh, and did I mention there is NO dental coverage at all, and only 1 eye exam a year is covered with no coverage for glasses or contacts? Add on more $$$ for all that.
Why do I spend so much? Because to be covered by any of the less expensive "state" plans I would have to go without insurance for a while (to become "uninsured") --and I have preexisting conditions that I can't risk not being covered for.
My medical costs me much more than my yearly income is. How do I do it? I sold the family home and moved in with a friend, and use the proceeds from the house to buy insurance.
Gee, THANKS, Mitt. Yes, healthcare is broken. But I pay MORE now for less, and can't take "advantage" of the "public option". How is this fix any better?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 09:26 pm (UTC)*I* can't afford those rates. The best I could do is pull down the +/- $500/month option for coverage after I spend $30K, which is basically giving the insurance company a $6,000 gift every year, just for Being There.
However, the link above was for Maine, and for people, oh, my age. You are younger than I am and live, perhaps, in a more civilized -- or, at least more populated -- part of the country. Which, on exploration, is not covered by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, you fortunate woman, you.
See if the insurance carriers in your area have a similar website, why not?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 11:21 pm (UTC)I moved to Maryland to move in with my then-girlfriend-now-wife, since I had a highly portable job and she didn't, and when I quit said highly-portable job to go back to self-employment, we were lucky enough to have someone point out Maryland's state insurance plan MHIP. Nobody knows about it, which is a tragedy, because you can get into it really easily, the rates are comparable to employer-provided health insurance (and in fact one of the criteria for getting into the state plan is if you've been quoted a premium for individual insurance that's more than a certain amount higher than MHIP's plan, or higher than "standard" for the plan you're being quoted for due to a pre-existing condition), and you can "buy down" pre-existing condition coverage by paying a slight increase in premiums for a year. Considering that my drugs alone are around a thousand dollars a month and my wife's employer won't cover me because despite us being married (out of state), they don't recognize out-of-state queer marriage, it has been a godsend.
I'm sure you've already thought of this, but: there are many, many umbrella organizations for small business owners and self-employed people out there that offer group health to their members. I don't know if any of them provide coverage in Maine, and you've probably already exhausted the research, but in case you haven't, I offer it as an option!
no subject
Date: 2011-05-19 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-19 12:31 am (UTC)The other thing I can think of is -- since there are two of you and you do qualify as a small business -- checking in with a small-business benefits provider (the one my last employer used to work with was ADP) and seeing what their rates are like. You don't need to tell them that you're a home-based business or that you're married; just tell them that you don't need anybody to do payroll, you're just looking for a group health plan administrator. Their rates are often much much better, since they generally provide group health for a lot of small companies, and therefore the cost is risk-managed across a much wider pool. I've never done that from an employer's end, though, so I don't know what it would cost.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-19 02:46 am (UTC)Rose, Syracuse, Ny
Insurance Anyone?
Date: 2011-05-19 07:05 am (UTC)Perhaps they are not really human out there at all. They are all zombies and no one has noticed. Scary.
C.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-19 07:05 am (UTC)It does help that this is a group plan because pre-existing conditions are covered but the HSA can be used to pay for those. It can also be used to pay for dental and vision expenses.
He rarely does any business with anyone in Maine or New York, because many of the benefits that the states require just make the cost of the insurance too high. But healthcare costs a lot even if it National Healthcare. If you are not paying for it with an insurance premium, you a paying for it with taxes. Having lived in England, France and Canada we have been exposed to s few national health plans. The better plans allow for some private insurance that usually provide more choice as far as treatment and choide of healthcare professionals.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-19 08:28 am (UTC)