By Jan Greene
Gee, I love having individual insurance. Just got a 17 percent rate increase in the mail for my high-deductible policy. Which means I’m likely paying $8500 this year to insure my young daughter and I, given that it’s likely I’ll end up spending the $2500 deductible, as I have the past two years. Each time it was the cost of one expensive medical test, a a fairly common biopsy in 2007 and a nuclear scan of my back in 2008.
I’m not unhealthy, and neither is my kid. But our medical costs keep going up. Why isn’t the individual insurance market handled like one big group insurance plan that evens out the risk among millions of people? I imagine the companies would say that people in the individual market tend to be older and sicker than the average group insurance member. But I wonder about that because they deny insurance to anybody with even a moderate risk of anything chronic.
It’s not news to say that our system is a mess. I feel sorry for all the people being laid off who get to join the individual market and its frustrations and uncertainties. Good luck to you and welcome to the madhouse.