Has anyone been following this? I can not believe what they have been doing to the competition! Forcing hospitals to raise rates and costing people coverage! The greed of these health insurance companies never ceases to amaze me. And now we are gonna HAVE to give them our money!?!

I have a friend who works for BC/BS and right now he is training indians they have brought here. Basically training him so they can go back and work for 1/5th the amount. (And then my friend loses his job).

Been there. Done that. Only it required 5 of them to take over my job. I'm a very good trainer.

My BC/BS plan is a high deductible of $5000, to keep my premium reasonable. This is the second year of my life that I had to depend upon health insurance. It seems that health issues, requiring mainstream meds, have become a priority this year. I have already exceeded the deductible this year. So obviously I needed health insurance.

Biggest problem for me, is that the new national health reform left out the possibility for me to buy insurance out of state. This was done to appease the party of NO, but they did not vote for the bill anyway. I was not looking for a hand-out, like a public option. I just want more competition.

Since there is no competition, the pharmaceuticals and the health insurance companies hold all the cards and holds all the politicians. That includes all political parties.

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- Jim

�Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.� Sir Winston Churchill

Yeah the health care reform has been a pretty big let down. Seems like the only thing changing is the fact that now we HAVE to have insurance. Although I was reading that the government is suing BCBS for their antitrust violations! Trying to break up these monopolies finally!!

That shouldn�t be too much of a surprise considering that it was essentially drawn up by the insurance companies and congress just rubber stamped it.

More proof that it does not matter who is pres. Just a puppet!

Thankfully, medical insurance is included in my benefits package at work. Last year, all employees had to start making monthly $50 supplemental payments to offset costs.

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I've been reading into this investigation on Blue Cross Blue Shield and they have been making deals with hospitals in a number of states that violates antitrust laws. They were making deals with more than half of the hospitals in Michigan to assure that the rates through BCBS were the best around. In doing so, they forced smaller insurers to hike up their rates making us pay top dollar for our insurance! This just isn't fair at all! I hope the investigation works in favor of the consumer!

Looks like costs are going up while standards of treatment are going down.

https://douglassreport.com/2011/04/25/medical-mistakes/

I just got a rate increase from BC/BS today. The increase is starting in June. A $30 increase per month. That's from 260/mo to 290/mo. And that is with a $5000 deductible.

So I go to https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ and the rest are about the same monthly amount. There are not very many companies to choose from. Congress ignored the call for shopping out of state. I'm stuck. It seems that the health insurance companies and Congress are on the same side.

This may sound crazy to some but my husband and I dropped insurance five years ago when he retired and we started finding the best supplements we could find. We also never ever take flu shots. I had to go to the doctor once since then for poison ivy and it costs less because we did not have insurance. We also have looked up as many natural meds for minor things. We just seem to stay healthier when we don't go to the doctor.

I'm so afraid to do that. A few others, on this forum, have done it. I'm afraid, because it would be my luck to have a serious infrastructural problem that I would need care. I had not been to a doctor for very many years, until the last 3 years have been bad. Hernia surgery and hemorrhoid surgery. I'm afraid that I'll have an accident or something that requires hospital stay or something stupid like that. I'm such a wimp. I'd love to drop that stupid insurance.

I understand more now since my daughters bill could be a half million from what some tell me. Yet, it has been a little more than three months and we still do not have the bill or know what they are charging her insurance. Probably the best is a high deductible and put back what one would normally pay for full coverage until the deductible was in an account.

One more thing though - when she got out of ICU, the care upstairs was so bad, we knew we had to get her out of there to recover. She was still hooked to all the tubes and ivs - we had to wait. She refused all their food, supplements and tests. She lived more than a week on supplements we brought into the hospital and when the last iv was removed, they sent her home. Thank goodness as she is now back to work.

Wanted to add - finally saw a partial bill of over $750,000.00 for the hospital and have not received any doctor bills yet. So far the hospital is still refusing to send her paperwork - except for the bill.

My husband now has VA benefits which is great if something serious comes up that they know how to fix. They have done some excellent surgical stuff on our neighbor who had a severe back injury... and for another neighbor, knee replacemenst that seem to be working out quite well

I don't have insurance.. If things get rough we load the camper and head to Mexico. They have good doctors there if you know where to go. Dam if they get one more red cent out of me.

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