If they go through with it, they will sign their own death warrant, as the simple solution will then be to open up everyone to Medicare. Their client base would evaporate, along with their profits.

I signed up for Medicare Supplementary Plan with Anthem in sept...3 months later they raised the coast
from $100 to $127. Fuck Them, Fuck Them!!!! thats all I can say!!!

Our company is self-insured since we could no longer afford premiums from United Health. They came in about 5 years ago and wanted a 45% rate increase.

that insurance companies are forging the sword by which they'll die.

We should have greatly curtailed their power in 2009, when we had the chance. It'll take a bit longer now, but it will happen. The only people are defending them are insurance executives and congress - the rest of America hates them.

I retired early last year, with the resultant reduced Social Security payments and not yet eligible for Medicare. Since then, my health insurance company has fought me on every single prescription refill, every time. The costs of meds are skyrocketing. One cholesterol drug has gone from $60 a month to $190 for the same month's supply. That jump happened between refills. Naturally, there is no generic version of this, and the insurer won't pay for it. Guess I'll have to do without.
It's pretty obvious that insurers and pharmaceutical companies are gaming the system in advance of the Healthcare Reform Act.

Medicare for all!

I did....Those things are so fucked anyway...

I was amazed and asked if it was a lost leader to get people in the store or would last only a few months and they said it was a policy and would not be going away. It's the only med I take so I was really glad. Meijers is only in Michigan and Indiana as far as I know.

As a group, they have been very likely to be denied any insurance due to preexisting conditions, or to be charged exorbitant rates. Under Obamacare, no one will be rejected for preexisting conditions OR be charged higher rates for these conditions. The only thing that will be taken account is age, and increases based on age will be sharply limited compared to now.

all Republican, and the governor is probably very pro-business. Nothing wrong with being pro-business, but Republicans have a history of taking it too far.

because of illness (chronic kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, and others).
But we can't go disability because he is not yet on dialysis; just a heartbeat away.
Obviously we have to have a good medical plan.

He is too young (63) for Medicare. We are also paying into his former
school district's plan: $1525 a month, more than our mortgage.

But next year will be worse: the school district is in financial trouble
and Governor Gashole (Pa) sent someone to tell the district what to do.
Even before he got here, he had decided it will be all charter schools,
and NO public school.

The current teachers can get a job at the charters with a 50% cut in
pay; no one will make more than $34,000 from what I heard.
Benefits.......hahahahahahahaha

So there will not be a public school to have a plan we can buy into.
We will have to go with a plan offered by PSERS (Pa State Education Retirement System)
that will cost us $1700 a month JUST FOR MY HUSBAND.
i will be uninsured, as I can no longer work outside the home either.
So we will pay the Obama Care penalty for me to have no coverage,
because we won't have any other option.

Is there mot some way you can reduce your monthly expenses by just directly negotiating with your
needed MD services for cash?. I’m in Cali and a lot of people are doing that..

Thanks for sharing... Your situation truly has pissed me off this a.m.
There is no process in NHA. which can force you pay penalty. Becomes just an outstanding I.R.S
debt... I hope there will be a govt, process which will eventually wipes the debt off the books..

They will deny at first over little and dumb reasons. I've seen people really have to fight for it. I'd speak to a lawyer about it because that doesn't sound right.

for other reasons than dialysis. Pretty sure his other ailments would qualify- especially if he had to stop working. You might need to get a disability attorney, but it would probably be worth it.

Negotiating for cash payments and being uninsured isn't really an option in his condition.
I met him ten years ago, and there have been several years in which his medical costs
were well over $10,000. That was BEFORE kidney disease. One dialysis treatment can
cost up to $1200 in our area. If he were to need dialysis tomorrow, which could well
be you never know, he would need it at least two to three times per week. That is well
over $10,000 per month. And even though dialysis automatically gets you covered
under Medicare, it does not do so until month four of dialysis. (Maybe some people
die first????)

We didn't even try to apply for disability with Social Security, after finding out that
90% of all claims are now being denied first go-round. We had been through so many
battles throughout the end of last year that we just were too dispirited and tired to begin yet another:
battles with his health, battles at work, and trying to figure out how we could financially survive
at all if he retired early. Just feeding him was a nightmare all on its own, as everything must
be weighed, measured, or counted for severely restricted sodium, potassium, carbs/proteins/fats.
I literally spent 40 hours a month for several months in a row designing and redesigning daily
menu plans trying to keep him alive. We seem to have some stability with that now, at least.
He had been losing weight so rapidly it was terrifying.

My husband didn't really WANT to retire; he LOVED being a teacher; his self-image is
ingrained with being a teacher. In his enthusiasm, he told his primary care doctor he
wants to work part-time as a substitute (through a substitute service), and I think that
this statement he made probably blows any chance at SSDI. He has yet to do this, but is working on it,
but I think he will regret that choice. I tried to explain to him that after increased taxes
and gas expenses, the pittance he will be paid means that the first few weeks he works
will net zero income. There is an ENORMOUS difference in the health requirements to substitute
teach a few days a week here and there, and the energy and effort required to full-time teach
(I don't know any teacher who works less than 60 hours a week during the year). But
does Social Security know that, or care? And if you get SSDI or SSI whatever it's acronym,
they just deduct almost all of the money you earn from whatever they would have given you
anyway. But I guess we will do this, for his pschological health, or at least try it. He will
find out what a terrible disappointment it is to be a substitute; teachers don't let subs really
teach anything, and you have very, very few opportunities to work one on one with students,
which is his joie de vivre. I know; I did it for two years. They only allow you to babysit;
it is rare for a teacher to let you teach anything at all when you substitute.


Perhaps we should give disability a try now that we have had a few months to catch our breath,
so to speak. His health condition has improved moderately since he retired (before it
was in a continuous decline every few months). And we are out of the insanity that was
his job. My husband is by nature so layed-back it can become quite irritating, except that
his good nature makes him irresistible. But during his last four months of work from Sept
to Dec of last year, every night he was either so depressed he could not speak at all,or
he was a screaming maniac. This from a man who always, always, always, always smiled
all the time, all the time. It was unreal.

The work situation in this school district is a nightmare; an intentional nightmare created
by the district go get teachers to quit (over 50% have been furloughed in the last two years).
The school district has been actively harassing teachers in an attempt to get them to quit.
A primary method is that children who are misbehaving are no longer removed from the
classroom, nor even counselled or spoken to by administration for at least 75% of the cases.
One example: two boys in third grade knocked down a girl in the class and kicked her in
the face. Teacher calls and asks for help; no one comes. Teacher files a report; no action
is taken. NONE. This is just one of many dozens of examples I have heard from direct sources.

In my husband's class, during the first three and a half months he taught, an emotionally-disturbed student threatened to kill other students and their famiies, recited their addresses, their family member names, and described in detail the gun he would use to kill them, a gun his family owned. No actions were taken. The student, almost every day, would scream profanities at the top of his lungs for up to 45 minutes at a time. He would demand of other students if they liked to do very specifically-described sexual activities, using profane terms for body parts. He asked my husband if he spit or swallowed, and called him names all day long. He was not removed from the classroom for this behavior. The principal faulted my husband for it. Meanwhile, this child was not/is not getting the professional help he needs. The school didn't even get him a psych review at all for three months. As of the time that my husband retired in early January, this student was every day, all day long, standing in the hall with a hall monitor, shouting his profanities down the hall, running into the nearby restroom and harassing students in there, and generally causing as much trouble as he could, all day long.

Then there is in-classroom harassment: on my husband's third day of work last year with his group of 8
learning and emotionally disabled children, the first activity of the day was eating breakfast. He was
sitting down with the children in a semi-circle around them as they ate. The furthest desk was 5 feet
away from his own chair, which was on wheels so he could move from child to child to interact
and monitor them. The principal walks in, makes a loud 'harumph', and demands of the children
in a nasty tone: "Does anyone here know what we SHOULD be doing??" The children ignored her
and continued to eat; my husband was stunned. She calls him into the hall, and reprimands him
saying that all teachers are required at all times to be standing and walking around the students and hovering
above them to monitor their behavior. Now, hovering around inner-city children isn't really a good
idea much of the time, anyway, particularly those who have suffered abuse. My husband's special needs classes respond particularly well to face-to-face, eye-to-eye friendly contact, and this is how he has
worked with them for two decades....because it works. My husband was written up. The next week
she came into his classroom in the last thirty minutes before dismissal. In these self-enclosed classrooms
with these particular types of disabled children, it has been the standing practice for decades to allow
the students free time the last 30 minutes of the day if they do their work, because it is a successful form of motivation to keep them doing what is so difficult for them (most are MR). If they do not do their work, then they must keep doing the work not yet completed. The principal wrote my husband up for not having a
specific lesson plan in the works for 'free' time. She began coming to his class several times a week with
similar things happening, then she came almost every day. One of the last things she wrote him up for was that
while the students were doing a writing project, and everyone was deeply engaged doing this with a partner,
my husband got an idea for his class three days out, and he went to his desk and jotted a brief note in
his planner so he would not forget it. He was written up again, because teachers are not allowed to
use anytime whatsoever to write down anything; if they do so then they are not focusing on the class
and hovering. Unless you have lived this type of 'work' life on a daily basis, after a long, successful and happy career, you just don't know what an evil nightmare this was. Oh and I forgot to mention the school year started out with the principal informing my husband that his students, most of whom were MR, must pass the 7th grade state tests at year end. Nine of his 12 students would be given the regular standard test. Most were at a 2nd grade reading level.

My husband was heart-broken and shocked that after 27 years or so of teaching inner city middle schoolers
with learning and emotional disabilities, and once earning the Helen Keller Teacher of the Year award that sits in our living room, he was being treated like dirt. He had dreamed of retiring at the usual age, and doing so with what used to be the routine 'thank you for your service' at teacher retirements. Instead, they did their best, and are still doing their best, to make every teacher feel like a disgrace. The emotional impact upon him is just indescribable. I have given him some comfort by reminding him that as he goes about town, former students still come up to him in our relatively smaller town and say Thank you, and THAT is the genuine appreciation that matters, not what some administrator is doing now. And those administrators will all lose their jobs as well when Governor Gashole's accomplice closes the school district (but HEY, some charter school jerk is going to make PROFITS!!) The most tragic case I have heard of so far is that of a young, mid-30s teacher, a man who was always enthusiastic, joyful, creative, inventive throughout his ten years of teaching. His students loved him, and spoke fondly of him years after having him in middle school...and these students don't like ANY teachers, let me tell you, it is against the city's culture to do so. Last fall they had to remove him by ambulance after he collapsed in the classroom. He was hospitalized for a full week; the diagnosis was stress. He never smoked or drank or had any bad habits that we know of; other teachers are now suspecting he has developed a drinking problem. And he has a child on the way.

So, all of this stuff between wondering if my husband would live another month or day, juggling his diet, and dealing with the stress of the harassment, and realizing we would HAVE to financially adjust to early retirement, was just too much to handle to be able to even think about beginning a battle for SSDI. Thank you for encouraging me to stop and reconsider this possibility; we really do need the money. It takes four months to get the first pension check so our savings are beyond gone now (still waiting a few more weeks).

Also, my son has severe bipolar disorder. The good news WAS that he was able for once in his 31 years to work at one job for 15 months while he was more stable, but hasn't been so for the past year. And now his review for his disability status is up, and because he earned more than $12000, he might lose his SSDI...cuz, you know, bipolar is curable I guess. Seeing his battle and our mutual terror over his loss of meds and all public assistance doesn't encourage a new battle with my husband's situation, but I guess if we don't try, we won't know.

Thanks again.

the spirits of the Union members are about the same as those of the young
teacher who had to be removed by ambulance. There was some effort made,
and a Union person brought in (from Philly I think), that seems perhaps to have
resulted in my husband's principal suddenly acquiring a new job (not in a school).
But that isn't really a help, as all 6 schools in the district are being run in the
same general manner.

It's been over 10 years now; I've paid roughly $70,000 to Capitol/BC while she re-modeled her entire kitchen.

Why do they have to make up for what they've lost with the elderly? At least make it younger people.

The stories of their huge college debt and their$10.00 an hr. jobs are sad. But hopefully they can recover.
People our age have very little chance of recovering from lack of or inadequate coverage.
Christ!! Our country is fucked up....