[QUOTE=jerry crump]I can defend not carrying health insurance by choice for millions that are healthy and do not have assetts that could be lost in bankruptcy. If you own a home, car and all of your assets are in retirement accounts (depending on the bankruptcy exemptions in the state you live in) you are probably better off putting that $500 to $1000 that many families pay into retirement accounts.
QUOTE]
ok, you have raised MY eyebrow to this one...
I am not savvy to alternative ways of handling the need for health care on a more immediate basis should something go wrong with my wife and self.
can you PM--or even email me-- to the ways and means of what you are talking about?
We both have jobs, my insurance covers little, and I beleive the entire system is a money sucking scam, but, like gas for my old car I need to get to work, I have no choice right now but to play along and try to affect some little bit of change over time. I have no choice at least for TODAY.
i have had those plans people get who are young and healthy and need to travel and get insurance that covers something huge, but as a skier and a person who is 40 years old planning to have kids and be slightly more domestic, I have more consistent needs now and I have little time to do much research or apply the same sort of hobby-like attitude to certain things as I may with my miles. I can play with and risk miles, but cannot necessarily do this with our health plans. That's probably why the rates are so high: the companies KNOW this to be the case with most people like me!
BUT still...
I am clueless here.
as for people without insurance, note that as a recruiter of creative and marketing jobs, I see a ton of freelancers from all levels who have no insurance and have no way of getting any. The system does not allow for it. Our company offers a plan to some levels but it too is not so great.
One lady who works for $35/hr 40hrs a week at a major boston financial firm had to go get surgery that will cost her $15,000. The fact she is out of work will mean she gets no pay for the 2 weeks she misses as this job we placed her at. they will not oust her and grab some new long-term freelancer to take her place (although this has and can happen, sadly enough) but she has to pay to get most of her hospitaliziation needs taken care of. Our plan she is signed on to will only cover about $3k of it, meaning this gal has to pay the other $12k on her own!
And that's working full time--at least in terms of your being there 40hrs a week!
She had no opportunity for the real "full time benefits" because said company does not hire "full time" employees anymore due to budgetary and overhead concerns.
Now she makes some decent money and can save some of it, but even so, 12k is 12k.
how can SHE get by with something the rest of us are clueless about--and how much work would a working mother of 2 who needs surgery and devotes herself to her career and family have to do in order to get as savvy about these alternative health plans?
How much work will it take for someone like her or me to be as savvy as we all may be about cool mile tricks and tips that most clueless people have no idea about nor trust?
some people belived in systems that diluted themselves over time and they have no idea how to get out even if they could. Soe wanna and cannot, some gave up, and some have too much faith.
MM