OT: High Finance - a holiday lesson rant

Well, it's that year-end holiday time. Time to gather friends and family.

Time to take the gentle pleasures of the season.

Time to get the new premium for the health insurance. How bad could that be? I have a high deductible health plan and an HSA just like fearless leader thinks I should have. You know where the first $5200 are on my dime so to speak.

Monthly premium up 19% for next year. Last year it was only 14.5%. That's 36.3% in two years. Have your rates gone up 36% in the last two years?

They bump up on age tiers, of course.

I'd carried my private insurance for a long, long time and it was cutting into me so much (with a similar high deductible) that I felt like, on top of what I was spending on what was essentially health-disaster insurance, that I couldn't afford to go to a doctor (since the first $4500 were straight outta my pocket). I don't think I've seen a doctor in over 15 years. But during that time I probably paid over $40,000 for the privilege.

On top of that my carrier (one of the big Blues -- actually, of course, they're the same benighted entity but they use their two nameplates as a fake competition angle) was implicated in some extraordinarily high-handed mistreatment of their insured, stringing people along and then changing the rules on them when it came time to pay out. The state of California has gone after them to some slight extent and they have supposedly started correcting some of their more outright cruel and misleading practices -- but clearly their "non-profit" heart is in the wrong place. (I'd like to know how much the top tier execs in that non-profit take home after bonuses. I'm thinkng they can afford to see a doc.)

Anyhow, I finally just threw it all aside... Which, of course, probably means that all those chickens whose existence I've been trying to deny will come home to roost... but then if that happens at this point I wouldn't even have been able to afford to pay the deductible and keep up my freakin' monthly payments, anyhow.

I also have an HSA (Health Savings Account). The idea behind it is that the premium is split into two portions. The first part goes to purchase a high deductable insurance policy. The second part goes into a savings account. The balance in the savings account is to be used to pay the deductable if the need arises. Of course that means that you need to be careful about spending the savings portion on things not needed (medical only) so that it is there when it is needed. If the savings isn't used before retirement it turns into an IRA account. I have burned up the savings portion over the past couple of years for dental work (ah, root canals and crowns). I also haven't been to a doctor in many years (knocking on wood). If I recall correctly my deductable is around $3,000 and my payment last qtr was $2088 of which $300 went into the savings account. The previous qtr payment was $1746, so rates are certainly going up. It takes about 10 quarters to fully fund the deductable savings account.

This is a feature that few seem to understand. The 'free marketers' seem to think that you are mobile and can change providers. Bull{censored}. You can change doctors. But these mf's have seen to it that you can't change providers. The mistreatment that you mention is an organized attempt to discredit claims if you actually present them based upon your medical history which they own (thanks to congress), which they read, rated and underwrote in the first place.

The fake competition between the 'Blues' is more bull{censored}. They are fierce competitors who share the same political action committee. I guess their competition is to see which executive can cut loose with more scratch for politicians.

Richard, you had to bring up dental work... I don't even want to think about how much money I dumped into that. Next time I'm seriously considering going down to Mexico. Honest. I know a few people who do and swear by it. Of course, people swear by things that save them money until something goes wrong.

That said, I've had a few very expensive dental jobs go wrong. I liked my dentist but he certainly was far from cheap and, for whatever reasons, his work did not always hold up. And -- let me tell you -- if he'd told me before all those very expensive [and admittedly good looking] crowns that their typical life expectancy was only about seven years -- I can tell you I would have investigated other options. Options he never once even mentioned. He basically told me what was wrong and asked me when his receptionist could make an appointment to extract the next couple grand out of my wallet...

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I checked out that scratch for pols link... I thought the figures for Larry Glasscock, CEO of Wellpoint (which makes him boss of a bunch of other plans including our beloved Blue Cross/Blue Shield) were highly instructive:

Follow the money.

BTW... if you take a closer look, you find that much of the money that Glasscock did give to Demos went to highly placed Demos with seats on important committees. Not, of course, that any of them, Rebublican or Democrat would ever allow themselves to be swayed by all that money. In fact, I believe the contribitors make all those contributions strictly because they have no effect on the outcome of legislation whatsoever. To do otherwise would smack of... well, bribery and corruption are such ugly words, aren't they?