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Politics Latest Messages: +256751735278 BEST DEATH SPELL CASTER / REVENGE SP..

Seriously thinking about one of us taking early SS - just to get decent healthcare

Posted: Jun 15th, 2019 - 10:33 am In Reply to: Planning to retire or have you, too, given up? - This is a dilemma

The premise of the ACA was that it would be affordable, that it would be portable and not dependent on a job. So the insurance companies lobbied and now they own everything again, so no way those CEOs giving up those bonuses.

In my personal situation, both my husband and I lost our jobs last year and we had a tough year as he was unable to get unemployment insurance. We both had to cash in our 401Ks just to live. The good thing was we were eligible for a state insurance that cost us $100/month for both of us and got us great coverage with low or no co-pays and dental.

Now my husband has a job, a decent job, BUT the insurance is terrible. HDHP which means we pay out of pocket until like $7000 or something. What is that ever but an incentive not to go to the doctor? I believe if you have a physical that's free, but everything else costs including blood tests, and until you hit that ridiculously large deductible they pay nothing.

It stinks and I think it is pretty representative of most companies because they can get away with it.

Used to be it was much better to have a job as far as health insurance, but now it seems, in our case at least, that that is not the case. Husband is making decent money, but certainly not enough to cover a $7000 deductible if one of us has to go in the hospital. It is also very physical work (which he has been doing his whole life) and he comes home sometimes barely able to walk.

So we are planning on potentially him taking early SS and me continuing to work. Because married filing jointly you can only make $32,000 or they tax you 50% above that, this is actually a terrible way of self-limiting our income and not sure if we can manage that. Pretty much cut everything we can but will have to no doubt cut more.

However, we can get back on the decent insurance since I am self employed and my income is not great, and most importantly we can avoid that dreadful $7000 looming there hanging over us. It's almost like gambling, this health care system. Of course, we are looking for another job for him which he possibly can do for many more years, one that's not so hard on him (with a knee replacement and severe OA), but we live in a rural area and every commute even seems to be close to an hour, so there's another cost and the pay mostly stinks.

I have not studied the various candidates' health care plans, but I know any Democrat will be miles better than the Republicans because R's simply have no plan except they don't want to spend any money on health care. They don't even want to look at why or how our healthcare costs so much of GDP.

Since R's got in, the drug costs have been increasing and more and more people seem to be ineligible for any subsidies, meaning every day you hear of people dying because they can't get something as basic as insulin.

I work for an Australian company and I am completely amazed at their health system, which costs half the GDP that ours does, yet they treat people, including indigent and indigenous people, with great dignity and holistically. The govt even flies you to a different part of the country if the type of treatment you need is there. For everybody, for free, not just rich people or those with great insurance.

If the US govt is not even willing to look at ways to reduce costs (except pinning it on middle/lower class people with health problems), that will never change what is wrong with our health care system. We need big change.

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