The Only Health Coverage (in the World) Available to Me

A gash on the bottom of my foot required five stitches this week. I was helping to unload a tractor trailer at my part-time job at Cracker Barrel (and yes, I promise, we will get to how and why I'm there). When I got home, my foot had, for lack of a better description, imploded. A 3/4-inch wound opened, all by itself, on the ball of my sole.

I'm still working at Cracker Barrel this weekend, my foot wrapped tightly in my shoe and my body filled with 10 days of antibiotics to do away with the infection that quickly took hold. But I haven't obtained their health insurance yet. (We'll eventually get to that!)

I hesitated to hit the Doc-in-the-Box for help (an urgent treatment care center), because frankly, my current insurance -- the policy I want to eventually replace with the one at Cracker Barrel -- has a high deductible. I still haven't met it. 

The doctor clucked her tongue at the wound and tested my blood sugar. No, I'm not diabetic -- yet. But the wound is indicative of what happens to diabetics, she explained.

I paid a $10 copay, and I fully expect a hefty bill in the mail for that visit. I was able to go to that doctor because for the past 11 months, I have maintained payment on a high-cost plan that is available to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

As I explained earlier, when no one in the United States would insure me at this time last year because of sleep apnea, I had only one option: Kentucky Access. This is part of the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, made available by Obamacare. 

According to www.healthcare.gov: 


"Coverage for people living with such conditions as diabetes, asthma, cancer and HIV/AIDS has often been priced out of the reach of most Americans who buy their own insurance, and this has resulted in a denial of coverage for millions. The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan is designed to address these challenges by offering comprehensive coverage at a reasonable cost." (Italics, mine.)

Note the word, "reasonable."

You ever hear the expression, "It's all relative?" "Reasonable" to one person may be incomprehensible to someone else, in that case, me. I've been told by a lot of people (who have insurance plans, by the way) that my health care premium and deductible are "reasonable." But compared to what I've had in the past, you might as well gouge my bank account every month. In fact, that's what happens.

The cheapest premium available to me under Kentucky Access, under my particular age group, is $503 per month. My annual deductible is $1,500. After that, I receive coverage for 80 percent of the costs of any medical treatment. (So, for example, if I had emergency surgery that cost $100,000, I would still be responsible for $20,000, after my deductible is met.)

As a self-employed contractor who is paid by the word for the stories I write, I've been able to keep up with the premium every month. Having said that, I'm now a single mother, and my living expenses are solely on my back. To take $503 out of my account every month, just so that I can have coverage if I need it? Well, let's just say that there have been at least a dozen times I've almost cancelled the policy. The only thing that has stopped me is my late father's words of advice: "Always have health insurance, no matter what you have to do to get it."

Now, if I add my child onto my policy, I'm looking at around $800 a month to cover the both of us.

And you know what? I just couldn't afford it. Around this time last year, I sat at my dining room table with a calculator for hours, trying to figure out what costs I could cut out of my regular living expenses. By the end of that exercise, I was in a heap, with my head on the table and my forearms covered in tears.

This left me with one other option. It was the last thing on earth I wanted to do. I can honestly tell you that besides the day my father passed away, the day I made this decision was one of the darkest moments of my life:

I went to the local public welfare office to apply for the children's medical program, three days before Christmas. 

It was horrible.

Tune in for the next part of the story of Mission Impossible: Health Insurance.

For more information about coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, see http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2010/07/preexistingconditioninsuranceplan.html