Healthcare coverage

If you are covered from your spouse, how does your spouse get it?

I can no longer skateboard because I cannot afford the medical bills when I wipe out.

my dental plan: chew on the other side of my mouth.

Relatively inexpensive. Covers both me and my wife. Not too bad.

I'm SOL.

However, my comp is converting me to perm (a process that's taken two months already) and when that happens I will have coverage

I think we're around 10K out of pocket, plus - being "fully covered". That's two out of pockets, because employer buy-out caused an insurance change. Plus deductibles, plus co-pays even AFTER out of pocket is hit, plus prescriptions, plus anything else they decide isn't covered for my son. We have 10 copays/month just for him, for his therapy (if we weren't on the eternal wait list for OT, it would be 15 co-pays/mo). That doesn't count if he goes to the dr (which is frequent), or needs something not covered or excluded, etc. Nor does it account for my other son (infant), my spouse or myself who have medical needs.

I'm thankful at least that when my oldest was born (micro-preemie), that I had outstanding 100% coverage, that truly covered everything. Without that, I doubt highly he would be here. I'm most certain insurance would have found a way to deny any one of many life saving treatments he required while in the NICU.

and paying through the nose for it.

but my company pays $300 / month for extended health benefits for my family, which pays for the things our government plan doesn't cover. (perscription meds, dental, vision care, physio etc)

Sid

and the boss won't get any. If a health care plan is implemented that requires employers to provide it, the boss will shut the doors--we're running nearly on empty now as it is. And besides that, I use alternative health care, which insurance companies won't cover (or will only cover minimally)--Kucinich's plan would cover this.

My husband is disabled and just got on SSD--but Medicare doesn't kick in for a year, and he has a small 401K that makes it impossible for him to get on Medicaid. So when he goes to a specialist (he's on a waiting list), it's cash in the 401K and use it up. He's going to be up front and tell the specialist that after that money is used up, there won't be any more. We hope it will be enough money so that my husband will at least get medication so he can move about and do simple tasks without being in agonizing pain.

Your competitors will have to provide healthcare for their employees also.

His competitors MAY close or contract staff to balance the costs. When you put a mandate in like that some companies will shut down or shrink budgets leading to unemployment and lower wages. This is why it is IMPERATIVE that the entire economic system of this country be looked at from insurance reform, trade, corporate waste and spending, etc.

If not, companies will have no choice but to contract to stay profitable which is the bottom line goal for any business more or less.

When you are forcing the employees to get their own healthcare coverage, they have less to spend and there goes the sales of your company.

It is the same argument with minimum wage. The pizza shop owner will have to pay more salary when minimum wage goes up and he thinks that will cut in his profits. However, perhaps now one of his employees can now afford to eat in the pizza shop and therefore he now has a new customer.

which would NOT include the kind of health care I use (holistic)--it would take, at a minimum, 1/4 of my monthly salary. Since my husband is disabled, I'm the only worker in the family. If I am forced to get health care that I won't use, I can choose to either not pay rent or not pay for food or not pay for the excellent health care I get now by paying out of pocket. I don't know that I am willing to give up any of these things just to enrich some bloated health insurance CEO of a company that dictates to doctors as to how they can treat patients and what prescriptions they can offer.

don't have employees--they have "subcontractors" and don't pay any taxes on them. Yes, it is illegal (because "subcontractors" don't drive company trucks and use company tools), but not much we can do about it without upsetting folks who would take it seriously--and very very personal.