It seems that the health care insurance industry is doing everything it can to ensure there is a public option in the new federal healthcare bill. A relatively rare insurance plan, common across all insurance carriers, is suddenly becoming more and more popular with employers- and driving more and more employees into medical debt.
An old 2000/4000 deductible plan (aka. catastrophic coverage), originally created with supplementary insurance in mind, is increasingly being used as the primary insurance offering for many Americans. These plans offer partial coverage (usually 80%) above a $2000 deductible ($4000 for family), with copays ranging from $50-$100 per visit. I first had contact with a plan like this in a municipal job that included a health-based supplementary insurance to occasionally take-up the sizable gap in coverage. Now I’m seeing these plans being forced on other companies’ workers with no supplementary offerings. What’s worse, these plan’s cost more than what was ‘normal coverage’ just 6 months ago. Normal coverage is now simply unaffordable.
Now, instead of just going along, many people who would never consider living without insurance are opting-out completely. People who were not interested in political antics before are now actively supporting the democratic public option. I’ve seen some professed republican factory workers, now thrust into this situation by their employers, backing democratic plans. It might not be enough for them to claim DEMOCRATIC on their voter registration cards, but enough for them to stop donating hard-earned cash to the republican party. Medical savings accounts are suddenly becoming an economic necessity. Odd that insurance companies would want to force more people into supporting socialized medicine in the middle of the debate, but that’s exactly what’s happening.
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