Medical Debt

[lvillotta1]

I guess this a vent about health insurance. My deductible is $5,500 after that it is a 80/20 max $11,000. We are a family that uses our insurance. That being said I have been paying off medical bills for the last 10yrs. I am medically bankrupt. I am a nurse and make a decent living, but I could just cry b/c so much of my check goes to those bills. We live paycheck to paycheck and I have not been able to put anything away for upcoming bdays,holidays and fall things we like to do. I am going to apply for financial assistance from 2 hospitals to see if they could help. I do have the money to pay a little every month,but I see no end in sight. Such hard working middle class people who are poor b/c of medical care.

 

[sonnyjane]

I am sorry. All I can say is imagine how much more you would owe without insurance.

 

[mommy123]

I know. I do appreciate some of the aspects of Affordable Health Care, yet one of the casualties continues to be the hardworking middle class that are saddled with high deductibles. I would definitely apply for hospital charity. Most people in my experience either don't know about it, or don't bother. As a nurse, it sounds as if you are very aware. I have never known anyone who applied for charity to get turned down. They always get something, even if not the whole bill written off. Best to you and your family.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I feel for you as I've been paying numerous medical bills, too, for the past few years (as a result of changes with the way the plans work). It seems unrelenting. I think that for many people, including retirees, medical care is one of the biggest expenses they have.

 

[Kimberlyann11]

Call the healthcare providers. They work with people all the time.

 

[Art 1]

I guess this a vent about health insurance. My deductible is $5,500 after that it is a 80/20 max $11,000. We are a family that uses our insurance. That being said I have been paying off medical bills for the last 10yrs. I am medically bankrupt. I am a nurse and make a decent living, but I could just cry b/c so much of my check goes to those bills. We live paycheck to paycheck and I have not been able to put anything away for upcoming bdays,holidays and fall things we like to do. I am going to apply for financial assistance from 2 hospitals to see if they could help. I do have the money to pay a little every month,but I see no end in sight. Such hard working middle class people who are poor b/c of medical care.

I feel bad for you. It's kind of the luck of the draw sometimes health wise. Just think, if you were and illegal alien you would owe nothing, and you wouldn't be paying premiums.

 

[kamik86]

I know. I do appreciate some of the aspects of Affordable Health Care, yet one of the casualties continues to be the hardworking middle class that are saddled with high deductibles. I would definitely apply for hospital charity. Most people in my experience either don't know about it, or don't bother. As a nurse, it sounds as if you are very aware. I have never known anyone who applied for charity to get turned down. They always get something, even if not the whole bill written off. Best to you and your family.

The alternative to that however is paying very high premiums to have the lower dedictible. Which may be a good idea if you KNOW your going to need the insurance that year... but what if you don't?

I have never hit my deductible... however I'm not so naive to not realize that I could easily hit it tomorrow. I could get in a car accident today and hit the deductible or even the out of pocket max by the end of the day.

So if you go with a high deductible plan and need it that ends up with high debt... if you go with low deductibles and never need it though your paying more then you need to be.

Its the same with car insurance... the difference of course being that if I can't afford it most people can find a way to live without a car for a bit... and having a large claim on your car one year doesn't really make you more likely to need to spend more the next (where with health insurance a major heart attack or accident today probably would make me more likely to need additional care next year)

 

[Mizzoufan]

I'm sorry I feel your pain,

 

[mnrose]

I feel bad for you. It's kind of the luck of the draw sometimes health wise. Just think, if you were and illegal alien you would owe nothing, and you wouldn't be paying premiums.

Love how some people think they can sneak in political comments everywhere. And, apparently, they get to. Interesting.

I can't respond to this snide remark without violating the rules against politics. But, whatever.

 

[mom2rtk]

I'm sorry OP. I feel your pain. I'm sick to death of hearing how we fixed the health care cost crisis in this country. No, we didn't. They just moved some deck chairs around. The iceberg is still there. All they did was shuffle around who the winners and losers are.

We had to move from our lower deductible plan this year when the monthly premiums got as high as our mortgage. We are now in the lovely world of $6K deductibles and hoping for the best.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I guess this a vent about health insurance. My deductible is $5,500 after that it is a 80/20 max $11,000. We are a family that uses our insurance. That being said I have been paying off medical bills for the last 10yrs. I am medically bankrupt. I am a nurse and make a decent living, but I could just cry b/c so much of my check goes to those bills. We live paycheck to paycheck and I have not been able to put anything away for upcoming bdays,holidays and fall things we like to do. I am going to apply for financial assistance from 2 hospitals to see if they could help. I do have the money to pay a little every month,but I see no end in sight. Such hard working middle class people who are poor b/c of medical care.

We use our insurance heavily as well. DH has the "medical account" that we put money in so we get reimbursed. We try to guesstimate our expenses for the yr. That does help out. It comes out of his paycheck every month.

Our deductible is 2,500 and we pay 20% after that. We always seem to it our deductible right away, never fails.

We are always paying on something as well. DH is always negotiating with hospitals with the payment plans.

Our oldest who is 24 and moved out but covered on our insurance has financial aid after insurance at a particular hospital group. She is going to need heart surgery soon. Can't wait for those bills.

I am thankful for the health care changes. It has helped out my dd. She gets to stay on our medical insurance until 26. I cannot imagine how hard it would be for us without that new law.

 

[Tiggeroo]

High deductible plans are terrible for many people. Unless you have ten grand in the bank are willing to take the chance you won't need it, in exchange for lower payments or the lower payments are close to what you would pay out of pocket worst case scenario you can end up like op. If you are young and healthy it is still better then nothing. Better to be able to get needed treatment and negotiate the copay then no treatment if you get seriously ill. I helped my twin sons find insurance when they aged off my plan this year. The choices were awful. And what happens with them with the high deductible plans is they generally live like they have no insurance. They won't go to the dr's unless they are on death's door because they know it will probably cost them at least 100. Given that your family uses the plan you should upgrade and pay more for your premiums so you will pay less later. Negotiate more firmly with the health care billing offices and tell them you can't afford the payments they are giving you. Better to pay it off at a lower amount for a longer period of time then to be broke with no savings. If they won't negotiate find a person who works on negotiations with medical billing or a friend who is better at playing hardball to do the negotiating. But most importantly during open enrollment switch that plan. Even look for a different job and consider the health insurance they offer as much as you consider the pay.

 

[TAX GUY]

Love how some people think they can sneak in political comments everywhere. And, apparently, they get to. Interesting.

I can't respond to this snide remark without violating the rules against politics. But, whatever.

But yet you did reply. You've even commented that some of my other posts were political. I'm glad to see you use this on everyone and it wasn't just personal to me.

 

[AlohaNow]

Political, yes, however a large part of the insurance debacle is in fact the number of consumers of medical services who never pay a dime for them. The middle class foots the bill for all those who don’t pay. I constantly see people shirking their medical bills and I know that I (and you) are making up the difference. This is why there is yet another thread on medical debt. We put our monthly health insurance premiums and all medical and dental bills on our credit card. Why? Because we care about our credit score. I want those bills paid and I want there to be no threat of being sent to collection. I can’t write a check for the bills, so they are paid by card. Do I want to chuck all the medical bills and just not pay them like I see so many others doing? You bet your sweet bippy I do. But, we are responsible adults in this world, we utilized the services, so now we are going to pay for them even if we find an ER bill completely outrageous. Do I call and ask for a discount for paying in full right now? Yes, and I am told there is no discount available (probably because I carry insurance). The folks who don’t carry insurance are probably given discounts, and the hospital even calculates what percentage they know they’ll have to write off.

This is definitely a hot button topic for me. We’ve purchased our insurance on the open market for the past nine years so the ACA really hasn’t changed anything for us. We mistakenly thought the exchanges would force the cost of insurance down (because now they actually have to compete for business) but with all the new required coverages it has gone up. I don’t see a fix anytime in the near future and it is only going to get worse. It is such a mess.

Rant over.

 

[mnrose]

But yet you did reply. You've even commented that some of my other posts were political. I'm glad to see you use this on everyone and it wasn't just personal to me.

No, it's not personal. But, I've been burned by the "your post is political" thing in the past, and I love how the rules are applied evenly. Not.

 

[Art 1]

Love how some people think they can sneak in political comments everywhere. And, apparently, they get to. Interesting.

I can't respond to this snide remark without violating the rules against politics. But, whatever.

There is nothing political about that statement. It's just an observation and a truth.

 

[mnrose]

There is nothing political about that statement. It's just an observation and a truth.

It's an observation. But, I can't debate the "truth" with you.

 

[daughtersrus]

I know. I do appreciate some of the aspects of Affordable Health Care, yet one of the casualties continues to be the hardworking middle class that are saddled with high deductibles. I would definitely apply for hospital charity. Most people in my experience either don't know about it, or don't bother. As a nurse, it sounds as if you are very aware. I have never known anyone who applied for charity to get turned down. They always get something, even if not the whole bill written off. Best to you and your family.

The OP said that she's been paying off medical bills for 10 years. The ACA hasn't been in effect that long.

 

[Art 1]

It's an observation. But, I can't debate the "truth" with you.

Why not? They don't pay insurance premiums, they are served in hospitals and not billed. What is there to debate.

 

[gwynne]

Political, yes, however a large part of the insurance debacle is in fact the number of consumers of medical services who never pay a dime for them. The middle class foots the bill for all those who don’t pay. I constantly see people shirking their medical bills and I know that I (and you) are making up the difference. This is why there is yet another thread on medical debt. We put our monthly health insurance premiums and all medical and dental bills on our credit card. Why? Because we care about our credit score. I want those bills paid and I want there to be no threat of being sent to collection. I can’t write a check for the bills, so they are paid by card. Do I want to chuck all the medical bills and just not pay them like I see so many others doing? You bet your sweet bippy I do. But, we are responsible adults in this world, we utilized the services, so now we are going to pay for them even if we find an ER bill completely outrageous. Do I call and ask for a discount for paying in full right now? Yes, and I am told there is no discount available (probably because I carry insurance). The folks who don’t carry insurance are probably given discounts, and the hospital even calculates what percentage they know they’ll have to write off.

This is definitely a hot button topic for me. We’ve purchased our insurance on the open market for the past nine years so the ACA really hasn’t changed anything for us. We mistakenly thought the exchanges would force the cost of insurance down (because now they actually have to compete for business) but with all the new required coverages it has gone up. I don’t see a fix anytime in the near future and it is only going to get worse. It is such a mess.

Rant over.

I don't know your specifics, of course, so these are general comments.

Most hospitals will work with you on bills. You call them, and tell them you can't pay the full amount, and ask to set up a payment plan. They get calls like this all the time, it's not an unusual request. You'll want to do this well before the bill gets into worries about credit reporting.

Some hospitals will discount a bill, but that doesn't happen as often (in my experience) for people with insurance. The bill generally has already been "discounted" with the insurance company. They have an agreed upon negotiated rate for costs, procedures.(This saves money for both the insurance company and the insured.)

Why were people that don't have insurance (mostly in the past) given discounts? Often it was because they really get stuck with unfairly high bills. They don't have a "discount" negotiated rate.

I think in the short term, it's challenging with insurance. Making sure to purchase the right coverage, right deductible for each family isn't easy. Long term? I'm not doom and gloom. I think it will settle out.

And just to add, I believe in the Affordable Care Act. Having people insured, getting regular care is cheaper, in the long run, than what was done previously.