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Oh ick. I'm a dual citizen and Mr. MJ and I have seriously discussed living in Canada when we're done with school; part of it is due to healthcare reasons. Our healthcare sucks. It doesn't cover non-routine visits, but only half-covers checkups. Labwork's never covered and most prescriptions are only covered 50%, if that. Ugh. Our vision insurance is nonexistant - it's basically a coupon for $30 off your checkup (you pay out of pocket and get reimbursed). Then our dental insurance is only $1000 a year so if you have a crown, you're done going to the dentist. My knees have been bothering me for 6 months and I haven't gone in because i know the treatments won't be covered and I don't want to spend the money.
I don't want to slam my own home country - it is a nice place to live... but I'm so sorry you have to deal with our effed up healthcare system after being used to the much better (IMO) heathcare system in Canada.
I've had a good experience, never really had problems and I've had 2 surgeries in the last year or so: one elective and the other emergency. For the emergency surgery they pulled through. What could have easily cost well over $30,000 cost me about $100. The elective one cost about $900 when all was said and done.
Over the years I've kind of learned that US Healthcare is all about which company you work for and the insurance plans they happen to choose. My insurance plan is apparently fantastic and covers everything I need (granted I'm pretty healthy, but I do have doctor's appointments every couple months) and actually my vision insurance covered about 1/2 the expense of my contacts for a year and a new pair of frames and the doctor's visit!
I think that the PPO options that allow you to choose your own doctor are pretty nice. They tend to cost slightly more per month, but I think the benefits are well worth it. You don't have to see a primary care doctor before seeing a specialist, and there are often many doctors that use PPOs so you can take your pick of whichever doctor is in the network and be covered under it (I think you can actually use doctors outside the network but it costs more. I've never done this as all my specalists seem to be in the network). I find that most of my expenses are usually covered by the PPO (I think I pay 20% per visit). My deductible is not as low as the other plans as well, but because like you said it's impossible to predict hospital stays I think it's totally acceptable to pay the higher deductible so that I could be otherwise covered should I wind up in the hospital.
I would like to point out, as someone who works in a medical technology field, that as nice as it would be for healthcare to be free, at the end of the day somebody has to pay for it. Medical technology, drugs, staffing, and everything else that goes into a hospital or a doctor's office has a cost, and it's not cheap.
Good luck picking an insurance plan!
Your husband is lucky to have so many health plans to choose from. He must work for a very big company. In order to choose the best insurance plan, you need to as Human Resources for a copy of their benefits sheet to see what is included up to what percent. Every company differs as far as what they provide, whether it be 100% coverage for emergency room visits or just a co-payment amount for a routine visit. If you have any questions, ask your husband to ask the human resource representative at his company. She can provide you with information you need in laymen terms so that everything is easy to understand.
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I don't understand how US health insurance works at all. I'm Canadian who is immigrating to the US so I'm trying to self educate myself.
My FI health insurance is free through his work. He has to choose between 5 different plans from Humana... it's crazy that you have to anticipate your future medical needs. Like who plans on cancer? Who plans on extended hospital stays?
The thought of having to pay for a hospital stay makes me sick. I just read a post where an ER visit of 2 hours, including 2 shots and a prescription, cost $1900. She had insurance, but initially an ER visit wasn't covered! I was in the ER a few weeks ago for severe stomach pain (turned out to be ulcers)-- they did a scope, ultrasound, xrays, and gave me *free* samples of the medicine and it only cost me the gas to get there. I understand we live in different healthcare worlds, but I hope you can see why this is so foreign (and scary) to me!
Has anyone ever had their insurance pull through & actually protect you the way its supposed to in an emergency situation? It seems like most people have had to deal with health insurance nightmares...