By: Teresa Ast

Teresa Ast — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:10:43 +0000

We have just cancelled our health care. We are appalled at the health care industry for their prices. Since my husband is a self employed driver and I work for a company that has no benefits (more companies are cancelling their benefits due to the rising cost) we can no longer afford it. The prices for self employed individuals is the full price of the prmium which for a family of four (full coverage) is on the average over $1100.00 dollars a month. That is $13,200.00 a year in premiums. The total of our doctors visits and emergency room visits for the past two three years has only been $2,147.00 )paid out of our pocket on top of our premiums due to high deductible we had to elect). Therefore the health care system received $13,200.00 free and clear and it did us no good. There is something very wrong with this picture. And the fact that neither politacl party Democrat or Republican will do anything about it is absolutely embarrasing. I have not bee able to getr any answer other than “we are so sorry but cannot do anything else. Since i also worked for a hospital in collections, I was able to see the amounts that were charged (overchargedO to individuals and the way that hospitals collect that I became very disgusted with the whole system. It seems to be so corrupt. How can a hospital write off so much debt (homeless, medicare, medicaid and no health care at all but still give bonus checks to the employees?????? When is the government going to realize that this would help a candidate for the presidency if they really cared about the health care (or at least understood how important it is) to present a system that would work for everyone?

Comments on: Failing grades for individual health insurance market

By: Teresa Ast