Help, has anyone else been through this, My husband carries the health insurance(I am self employed). He lost his job, COBRA will be $1163 per month for the family. I have about 5 more weeks of the 60 days to decide to sign up. We were hoping he would bounce into another job quickly (He's a truck driver) and could go into another health insurance without having to pay for cobra.
THe problem is all of our preexisting conditions. My 13 year old son is type I and on the omnipod. I have High blood pressure, high cholestorol and acid reflux issues as well as thyroid replacement. My husband has Graves disease which shouldn't cause too many more issues. I don't know that much about the new health care laws. I heard that ins companies can no longer refuse a child for a preexisting condition, but what about us adults. Should we just pay the cobra so that we have seamless coverage and less questions about pre existings or gamble with the chance of not having any coverage for a while?
Also to stretch the insulin, can i use the humalog in the pens we are no longer using in his pods.
I would definitely pay the COBRA until you can get on a new insurance plan through your husband when he gets a new job. As long as you are continually covered under a COBRA plan, you can’t be denied by a new insurance company for having a pre-existing condition. COBRA could be expensive, but it might be worth it in the long run.
Other suggestions to get through this transition period:
Check out to see if you can qualify for prescription assistance programs through the drug companies themselves. Usually, if you are out of work or don’t have prescription drug coverage, you can get free insulin through the companies that make the insulin themselves. Here’s a link to the prescription assistance program from Lilly (the makers of humalog): http://www.lilly.com/responsibility/servingpatients/programs/
Check out other insurance options in your state through healthcare.gov. This is a new web-site that has been set up as part of the new health care laws where you can go and check out what options are available in your state. It’s pretty easy to use, you just answer questions about your current situation, and it lets you know all the options you currently have in your state.
One of the immediate effects of the new health care law was that children with pre-existing conditions can’t be denied coverage anymore, so that takes care of your kids being covered. By 2014, that will apply to all people with preexisting conditions, no matter what age.
4)As of the end of this summer, because of the new health care laws, all states have to have a Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, where you can get insurance through the state if you’ve been uninsured for 6 months, and have a pre-existing condition. Some states already have what they call “High Risk Insurance Pools” where you can purchase insurance (usually more expensive–but probably less or as expensive as your COBRA), if you can’t get insured by any other means because of a pre-existing condition.
So, basically, you definitely have options, and just by browsing around on that Healthcare.gov website, it looks like your state is one of the better ones with more options for people in your situation. I HIGHLY suggest starting at that web-site and exploring your options from there.
I don’t have a family, but I’ve definitely been in that situation with regards to needing insurance. Between COBRA, a state High Risk Insurance Pool or a Pre-existing condition Plan, I bet you can stay covered until your husband gets a new job. Also, if you ever can, I highly suggest trying those prescription assistance programs if you qualify. Free insulin? How can you beat that?
Good Luck! It can be seriously annoying trying to work through all the red-tape, but you can get the care you need! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
-Erin
Thanks Erin, I appreciate your explanation. We’ll probably just pay for cobra for a couple of months and hopefully that is all we’ll have to do. He could get a road job tomorrow but we’re trying to hold out a week or two to see if he can get a more local job
Michelle I had to go through the same. I was diagnosed 3 weeks after I was laid off. I was lucky i paid my cobra payments of 1000 dollars per month because I just had a baby and my company said that he could not be insured if I was not insured so I had to pay the cobra. If I would not have paid cobra I would have spent 40,000 for a visit to the icu for DKA. I did manage to get a job 3 months later but I took my time looking. This happened to me during the IT bust of 2002.
What does your husband do for a living? I am in the tech sector as a software developer and I do see a lot of hits to my resume in monster and get frequent calls on a resume from 5 years ago. Mostly contracts but at least a job.
I had to cash in my 401K and stocks and other goodies to pay for a new born, pay for cobra and take time to put myself together but after 3 months I found a job. Another thing hit the unemployment as soon as possible. I filed for unemployment as soon as I was laid off. The money was small but at least it was cash in pockets. My wife worked as a contractor for several years and as soon as a contract was over she would file for unemployment and hit the net through monster and careerbuilder and other sites to scout for jobs.
If you have any other question about getting in track to find the next job and how to navigate through the unemployment land shoot me a message. In my day I was good at scouting new gigs. For my wife and I being in IT we came up with a system of finding work and navigating through periods of unemployment.
They can’t deny you any more for pre-existing conditions, and I know prior to the health care reform bill, if you ended insurance with a company they would send you a letter saying if you get insurance within 6 months of ending coverage to show them the letter and it would wave the pre existing condition wait period. You should check out healthcare.gov. it explains the health care reform bill,and may even be able to lead you to cheaper options than Cobra. I had to go on Cobra a while back and they wanted 400 a month for just my self.My insulin with out insurance was only 118, and I had enough pump sets at the time to wait till i could get back on my parents insurance since I’m under the age of 26, so it didn’t make sense for me to pay more for tje insurance than my health care was going to cost me monthly.The only thing I did keep through Cobra was my dental since I have extensive dental work that needs to be done.Good luck.I hope you find a solution.Health care should not be this expensive.Sometimes I feel like they’re saying if you’re not well off you don’t deserve to live.
Thanks wil,
he is a truck driver, so there are truly always jobs, they can be really bad though (like home once in 2 weeks) he has been local on days for 14 years so we are spoiled. Looks like we’ll have to pay the cobra and hope this all goes quickly. He’s been applying, so hopefully unemplyment will be short. We actually have a decent savings account due to having inherited a little from my Grandpa lately. I had been too careful and slow to decide what to do with it since the economy seems so unstable. So… I guess it will go for a few months of cobra which is definitely not what I planned onbut plans rarely work anyway.
WOW it os tough out there.I was recently in the same boat… I found that talking to my Doc and to diabetes cordinator? she got me Insulin from a sales rep for 6 weeks freeeeeeeee…
and also go to www.needymeds.com
and or go to manufactors they offer disc, I got some meds FREE to get me by for 2, 3 mos and more if I need it.
