Health insurance may not sound like an incredibly blissful subject and, to be honest, until recently it wasn’t one that I that I paid a lot of attention to. We’ve always been fortunate to have had jobs that have offered insurance and we’ve always paid our premiums, used it as needed, and most years realized that if we’d have had to, we could have paid our doctor’s bills ourselves because we didn’t spend a lot on healthcare.
I realized that had changed last year when John had his heart attack. The bills for his heart attack and after care were over $150K, more than our combined annual income. There is no way that we could have paid those bills ourselves and we would have lost our house, been pushed into bankruptcy, or worse. Our share of the bills is only about $2,500 and although that will cause a little bit of heartburn (pun intended), it’s certainly a loss less stressful than thinking about being $150K in debt.
A project I’m working on made me privy to the information that my company is a self insurer, which means that they pay Blue Cross Blue Shield to administer the insurance, but the company itself actually ponies up for claims. That means that my company wrote a check for over $100K to pay for my husband’s health. Since it was a benefit, I wasn’t taxed on the money and the company just wrote the check once BCBS verified it was a valid claim.
The experience has made me seriously rethink my thoughts about corporate America as I used to view corporate executives as greedy thugs out only for themselves. However, realizing that because of corporate policies, my husband’s health, and our financial health, was protected, made me rethink my thoughts on corporate ethics. It also made me realize that even though my company has frozen benefits and given paltry benefits, I’m getting a lot more out of the deal than I thought.
Like most Americans, I’m struggling to make sure my bills get paid on time, it is pretty blissful to know that I’m not going to be even more in debt than I already am.
Cairn by Cairn 