My husband and I have no health insurance. Many of you reading this have the same problem we do. Like me, you are worried about what may happen if you, or someone in your family gets sick. How will these medical bills be paid? I keep reading news articles that indicate that everything will be just fine in 2014, when the health insurance exchanges will be set up. That’s great…. but I need health insurance right now!
This week, my husband needed to see a doctor. He had not been feeling well for about a week and a half. Some of the symptoms that he was experiencing indicated that there might have been something serious going on. It took quite a bit of encouragement from me, and from some of our friends, for my husband to make a doctor’s appointment, and have things checked out. He hesitated because he was worried about the cost. The cost of the doctor’s visit itself was something we could handle. However, we wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of much more than that. If my husband had a serious medical condition, there wouldn’t have been any way that we could manage to pay for the cost of the medical care that would be required. Fortunately, it turned out that he did not have anything too serious going on this time.
We tried to get health insurance earlier this year. Our insurance agent gave us the best deal she could, but the premiums were still too costly for us to afford. We both work part time jobs, and I am getting some unemployment benefits. We simply don’t have an extra $300.00 a month that we can spend on health insurance, (or on anything else, for that matter!). She gave us a referral to another health insurance company, and we will be looking into what they can offer. I worry that they won’t be able to help us, either.
I found an website where you can plug in information, and see how the changes in health care reforms will affect you. The first question is “Do you have health insurance?” I clicked the box that says “no”. I am not under 26 years old, so I also selected “no” for that question. How many people are in my household? There are two of us. Next, I need to enter my adjusted gross income, and let the thing know that I am married.
This helpful website says that we will receive tax credits in 2014 to help us pay for the cost of insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-payments. It says the tax credits will ensure that we “do not spend more than $1,890 to $2,415 on premiums”, and our max out of pocket costs for deductibles and co-payments will be capped at 27% of the total cost. Interesting! This means that in 2014, we would only have to spend between $157.50 and $201.25 on health insurance premiums each month. That sounds somewhat more manageable. I have no idea how to figure out what the cost of the deductibles and co-payments will be. This gives me hope that someday, we will be able to afford to have health insurance, which will be a relief. Now, we just have to stay perfectly healthy until sometime in 2014.
Image by Lisa Brewster on Flickr