No Insurance, Poor Health

I live in Canada - we don't need health insurance the way you do but it's still good to have insurance for other things like prescriptions, etc., and there are many, many, many companies here that still don't provide that insurance and to get it on your own is prohibitively expensive so if you have any type of health condition requiring constant medication, it can run you many $$$ very quickly.

Exactly.

NOTHING. We drove a $300 car (no bus service), we lived on ALL home made food (No restaurant going at all, no takeout), we bought second hand clothes for us AND the babies, etc., etc. We were very poor in those days and that's just the way it was. NO credit cards. NO extras whatsoever. I used cloth diapers for the kids, borrowed clothing for years, and I wore the same clothes for 10 years - didn't matter to me - I had no one to impress. Not everyone has a silver spoon in their mouth and, if you don't have a university education, it's very difficult to support a family when you're young.

Again, when you're not HIGHLY educated, you work where you can find a job. There aren't that many jobs around here and you take what you can get. We were lucky at times to be able to pay the bills and put food in our mouths.

 

That is it.............People choose to work at a place that doesn't offer health insurance.

Mark

 

myminpins, most of what I written here is for people that work in the states. I should have looked at your location. I understand that Canada has a government run health system.

Question, Why if there were no good paying jobs didn't you move to a place with better jobs?

Mark

 

I've lived here my entire life and my family is here. I had no interest in moving away from here.

It's extremely expensive and risky to move just in hopes of finding another job, too. Just wasn't something I was ever interested in doing.

As time went on, things got better.

This is one of the poorest provinces in Canada but it's wonderful here for many other reasons - great place to raise a family, wonderful people, great terrain, low crime rate, not crowded, etc.

I'd rather live "poor" here than "rich" out west.

And by the way, our government run health system does NOT cover prescriptions, ambulance, physical therapy, psychologist, etc. It just covers operations, hospital care and costs and doctor's visits.

 

You are right. But when the economy gets rough, the benefits drop. So, don't be surprised to see many of the companies that provide health insurance to suddenly stop.

 

In the area I live, the large companies are having the employees pay a larger portion for health insurance, but I have never heard of one dropping health insurance as a benefit. Most, if not all are using health insurance as a recruiting tactic.

Mark

 

Good to know for you. It happened to several businesses in the last year around here. I look for it to happen more.

 

What we will see more of in the US, is companies still offering health insurance, but with a very high deductible. In other words, the first $1000 to $5000 will come out of your pocket, then the company will pay a percentage. Still, it is something.

There is a hospital here in my city that takes care of children. Now, they do a fantastic job, but they know they are the only game in town. They mark the cost up on everything by at least 3 times, then the only agreement they will come to with insurers, is to pay them 97% of billed charges. In other words, a drug we could get from one of our own suppliers might cost $1000 a dose. They charge $3000 and we have to pay 97% of that.(We are stuck paying that if the child is in the hospital). I have seen them request authorization for a power wheelchair for a 2 year old at a cost of $25,000. (We denied that one.) Then, it makes me want to throw up when I see all kinds of fund raisers and thousands of dollars contributed to this hospital, when they are ripping off every single insurance company out there on a daily basis. Guess who is paying for all this in the end. The insurance companies are paying but the costs get spread out to everyone who is a member of the plan, in premiums, deductables and co-pays.

It blows my mind, that where I work, I pay about $41 per pay period for myself to have medical, dental, vision, and prescription coverage, and all services I might need are covered at 90% with no deductable if I stay in network - and people call me every day complaining about the "lousy coverage". (I think it runs about $100 a pay period for a family - whether its 3 or 13.)

As for starting out and raising a family and being poor - been there, done that and STILL made sure we had health insurance. Many times it came down to paying for gas to get to work or buying food for the kids. I washed a lot of cloth diapers, and packed a lot of peanut butter sandwiches for work. And that was with two of us working. But we never considered it an option NOT to have health insurance. You don't see that money and you learn to live without it.

Both of my sons are in their 20's and have health insurance, and both have used it. One son had to have a tonsillectomy when he was 24, the other had a (non-serious) motorcycle accident at 21. They would have had to pay billed charges had they not had insurance, and that would take them years and years to pay off in each case. They have learned from those experiences not to gripe about premiums!

 

Your deductible sounds very reasonable to me. We will be paying $260 a month for JUST prescription coverage (20% is paid by us no matter what the cost), vision ($200 every two years max) and a couple other things.

Sounds to me like you have an excellent package where you work!!

 

This is a word of caution to anyone working without health insurance. Don't do it. In 2000 I went to work for a small carrier close to home. He only had 10 trucks at the time. He told me he couldn't afford to offer health ins yet but would be coming later on as he expanded his business. I looked into getting private ins but the cheapest I could find was almost $400 a month. So I decided to wait untill my employer offered it. It was a bad decision. In Dec 2002 I still didn't have ins and thats when I found out I had colon cancer. It took every penny I had saved and I still had to beg and borrow to pay for the treatment. I beat the big C for now, I'm still cancer free after 5 years, but I'm broke and it takes everything to pay the medical bills I still owe. All because I was to cheap to buy the ins. Don't let it happen to you.