Healthcare and Insurance :)

Oh how all my wonderful friends and family know by now that there is no end to my questionings and mind-sets :)

I was going to tell you all why I think we as a family are the lucky ones when it comes to getting care and financing Connor's medical needs.

The reason I keep mentioning and posting the cost factor is as followed:

I feel at times that there is a certain ignorance when it comes to realizing what the cost is if you yourself or a family member gets hit with a long term disease, a disease that has no cure or one that is terminal....

Ron and I are 'lucky' in the way that we are with United Health Care and have always selected in the past to have a PPO. This way we get to choose what doctors we want to use and where to take our child for treatments.

We are lucky first of all the we have insurance!

We are lucky that Ron has a job that pays well and has always kept us in a happy middle class lifestyle that we love!

We have 80/20, with a $150.00 deductible, $1000.00 out a pocked a year with a maximum for Connor of $5,000,000.00. This in itself is pretty darn good if you look at it and are not looking in treating a disease like cancer for example and I will explain a bit more about this ....

Of course as all dealings with insurance companies go you know very well that what is said so easily is not in fact written in stone. The amount of $1000,00 covers items that they think is needed for his treatment. Everything during our stay on the hospital was negotiable, especially when talking about the Therapy that is required or items he needs in assisting him like braces and wheelchair. It will be quiet a while before we see the real impact of costs facing us BUT this is where I don't want you to get us wrong.

We are NOT complaining about what cards were handed to us. We will always make sure, as would any parents, that our kids will get the best treatment and therapy there is. Do I think it is fair that this could change our lifestyle?

'not always' but everything is secondary and there is no choice in the matter when it is about your child and just as the saying goes ... all of us would give our life's to safe that of our child ..... so of course you do not question it if it means you having to give up the lifestyle you were used to! nerveless I feel I still have the right to complain about the cost - ha ha

We are also lucky once again that Ron has the option to work an extra year or two to help balance things out in the long run!

Now this brings me to the real reason as why I am going to post from now on what money we are spending.

For one can you please ask yourself if you have sufficient insurance coverage should this happen to you? Does our family and friends and neighbors?

We just paid $700,00 at Walgreen's for medication he might need to take long term. What we picked up might last for a month, even thought I look at some of the bottles and know they won't last this long. This bill did not include the Solumedrol and Methrotrexate he will get administered twice a week through Home-Care. It also does not include the IVIG he will receive once a month and we were told this one small bag that slowly drips into his body over a period of 8 hours cost just '$10,000.00'

We met a family on one of the support pages on the Internet that can not afford to buy a wheel chair for their son due to him outgrowing his original one. The insurance denied the claim and now they have to hold a fundraiser to raise the $700.00 for a new one. When you look through all the care pages and blogs through the Internet you see Fundraisers for Medical Funds for terminal ill children everywhere. How can this be that families who are 'not' poor have to ask for outside help? how can it be that Insurance Companies make money left and right? and why do we even have insurance companies when you are still stuck with paying so much out of pocket?

Another worry that I seem to come across the Internet is something Connor does not need to worry about just yet but what if your child comes of age and is taken of his parents insurance and now has a 'black mark' of a preexisting condition like cancer or JDM which does not have a cure. Do you realize that your child might be denied insurance?

The reason I mention middle class is if you are poor you get help even if it is not what you like per say and if you are rich you obviously don't worry about it.

So I know I am controversial now and PLEASE know I am always open for opinions from both sides. I do not have the answers and I don't know what the future holds but I do love to listen from those that might have more knowledge ... so here my busy brain asks you again:

Why is everyone so afraid of the new Health-care Reform? If you lived what we are living now and many other middle class families how can I worry right now that it will get worse? worse then what we face now?

worse then many families with a terminal disease in the family that are facing bankruptcy if they don't get outside help from Fundraisers?

Last time when I posted about my believes you all have been great in giving feedback through my e-mail, Facebook and here. I truly cherish any advice!

Time for my brain to take a break and off to play with my two 'little' favorite men :)

Hugs,

R A C A