Run away now
Before you get sucked
in!
All three of those topics (hospital, medical insurance,
debt) are all entwined for us. I have to
talk about all three to show the magnitude of how crippling of an effect these
have on someone. I will start out with
the shocker:
We are $40,000 deep in
medical debt.
The same question I get asked by others is, “Well, don’t you
have medical insurance?” Yes, we do. It is insurance through my husband’s work,
but it is the WORST insurance when it comes to hospital stays and ER
situations. The kicker is that our
insurance will actually send us a check when we go for regular doctor visits.
They pay us when we are sick…. Hm… Isn’t that odd?
We also get asked why we do not switch to insurance that is
more reliable. The reason is because
most insurance out there is too expensive.
After researching what’s out there, I have found that most cost at least
$500+ a month to have a family of 3 covered.
That’s like having 2 mortgages to me.
Not an option for our one-income family. If there was a way, we would
switch. No doubt about that.
The crappy insurance we use has been with us since my
pregnant days in 2010. The massive debt
started there. Our insurance covered a couple thousand of the cost and we ended
up with $15,000 we needed to pay from our pockets. Can I just say how the
hospital charges an insane amount for every day items? Really, they do. I had a gauze bandage on my stomach after the
C-section, and the hospital said they charged $1,500 just for the gauze! I still want to cry over that thought, but it
also makes me want to laugh. What a joke!
Then my husband was in the hospital for 5 days and doctors
did every test imaginable on him. Any time a doctor walked into the room that
was like a $200 charge. So you can imagine how much we had to pay every time a
doctor just stepped foot into the room.
At one point, I wanted to tell them to not come in the room so we wouldn’t
rack up charges!
This month, my son had a seizure and after calling 911 the
paramedics arrived. I am very grateful to those 6 paramedics that arrived on
the scene within 5 minutes. My two year
old was unresponsive and I knew the paramedics would do everything they could
to help him. My son was transported via
ambulance (another thing our insurance doesn’t cover much of), and ended up at
one of the best child’s hospitals in the area.
After getting my son’s fever down and getting an IV, my son was doing
better. I am still unsure of what this
will all cost since we haven’t seen any bills arrive yet. Our debt of $40,000 will be more now.
I do have to say that I am grateful that we live in a
society of great doctors and medical technology because they save lives. But I am very concerned and frustrated at the
fact that insurance and hospital costs "kill" those who lack great insurance or
have no insurance.
The kicker to all this is that people who do not make much
money can get free healthcare. Yet those who work hard (including us) are
seeping through the cracks of this thing we call healthcare. Technically, we probably have less money than
those who are on free, government healthcare if you consider the amount of debt
we are in. Kinda ironic. I'm not saying that those who are on free healthcare shouldn't get the help they need. I just think that if I owe a certain amount for something, they should owe the same amount. It may take them longer to pay it off, but it's the same deal for me...I pay as I can.
My husband and I also get asked why we do not just file
bankruptcy. That is a whole other rant,
but I will say that we are determined to pay ALL this debt…even though we feel
like it was unwarranted debt. Too bad I
didn’t go on a shopping spree, get a new car, and go on a million dollar
vacation to rack up this debt. In some ways, I would understand the importance
of paying off debt for things I did to myself. Things I did out of stupidity
which would require me to learn my lesson and pay off the debt. But this happened
to us—a family that is trying to be responsible. Life just bites you in the butt like that
sometimes though.
And I will say that we have paid off at least $15,000 since
2010, but we have a LONG way to go. Back
then I had a teaching job and all my income went towards that debt. Now, we have a different plan since I’m not
working anymore. We follow Dave Ramsey’s
plan to get us out of debt! That is
another blog topic in and of itself.
You get dealt a bad
hand of cards and how you deal with it is what matters.
What is your take on everything
I mentioned?
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