Pet Insurance... Warning: Exploding Head Rant Inside!

Ok, that's it. I have had enough. PET INSURANCE? I can't get insurance for my wife or 2 of my sons because of "pre-existing conditions", gays can't get insurance for their partners, but those lovely people at Palm Beach Community College have determined that their employees should have insurance for their pets. Thanks to C&L for this link:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2007/11/24/s1b_PBCC_1124.htm

I can't wrap my head around this. A couple years ago I went into business for myself. Luckily business has taken off and for the first time in my 45 years I am not worried about how to make ends meet. Problem is now I fall into the gap between "can't get medicare for my wife or sick kids because I make too much money" and "we can't insure you because you have sick people in your family".

Maybe some genius from Fox News or from Freeperville can explain to me how I can get insurance. I've tried them all. At one point I offered AETNA $1700 a month to cover my family and I was denied(pre-existing conditions). It would have put me back into the "struggling to make ends meet" category again but my family would be safe. Right now we are paying for my wife and son's meds and all their medical care out of pocket. I have an autistic son who luckily is highly functioning and does not require much medical attention and I have an adopted son who has Muscular Dystrophy which luckily has not manifested itself yet. How much longer can I rely on this kind of luck? Or on pay as you go medical care, which mind you is outrageously over priced thanks to insurance companies? We are basically one serious illness or even a broken arm or leg away from going back to living paycheck to paycheck. I guess it's too much to ask for to have affordable medical care for my family, obviously working my ass off for 30 years isn't enough to earn me the right to live without the fear of one of my kids dying from the fucking flu. But never mind that, now I can get insurance to cover Fido if he has worms!

When my kids are fully grown and out of my house I'll be moving to another country. I am an honest hard working guy, who has just discovered that people like me are not welcome here. What America wants are greedy, nasty, apathetic morons who are more worried about whether the schmoe behind the counter at Wal-Mart uses the word holiday instead of Christmas than they are about sick children receiving medical care.

I could rant about this shit all day, But I just sneezed and if I don't run out and take a bunch of useless over the counter cold and flu medicines I may get really sick. Then I'll be really fucked.

It would have saved me about 3 grand (so far). Now I can't get it for her.

Sorry if this is off topic.

I just have bad luck with dogs, REALLY bad luck. My next dog should be perfect, based on the odds.

and went into private practice about how people with insurance often get "too much treatment too soon" and wind up sicker from side effects from unnecessary medication and premature surgical intervention. I guess it really can work both ways.

I'm with you on blowing this pop stand. I've been uninsurable for 20 years next month and I think that's long enough to put up with being a nonperson in my own country.

Even Mexico has national health insurance.

They started insuring shipments at sea and it just grew and grew...of course those initial "shipments" were human cargo (slaves). Interesting that they dominate the London skyline now...

They still will insure just about anything at a price.

Such is the entire industry. It's a somewhat clever idea to support a disgusting industry turned even more disgusting, no?

Have you looked into getting an HSA? Since you are already paying so much out-of-pocket, you could probably benefit from a major-major med policy to cover catastrophic expenses.

Also, once your stepson's MD manifests (and--let's hope it never does) you would probably qualify for some benefits through Medicaid, or MDA might even have something.

I was a little disconcerted to see ads for pet insurance, but I know people whose dogs have bigger wardrobes than a lot of people! Where there is a buck to be made, someone will make it, I guess.

regret it or apologize for having it.

It was far cheaper than I would have spent without it.

I loved him with all my heart and was blessed to have him in my life for 11 years.

It is a personal choice, no one has to have it.

:thumbsup: :-)

(not mine, but I heard her speak about this in Sept and found the article today for you..)

Children Deserve Veterinary Care Too

By Barbara Ehrenreich,

If Bush vetoes the SCHIP bill that would expand state health insurance coverage for children, the fallback demand should be: Open up pet health insurance to all American children now!

This year, Americans will spend about $9.8 billion on health care for their pets, up from $7.2 billion five years ago. According to the New York Times, New York's leading pet hospitals offer CT scans, MRI's, dialysis units, and even a rehab clinic featuring an underwater treadmill, perhaps for the amphibians in one's household. A professor who consults to pet health facilities on communication issues justified these huge investments in pet health to me by pointing out that pets are, after all, "part of the family."

Well, there's another category that might reasonably be considered "part of the family." True, they are not the ideal companions for the busy young professional: It can take two to three years to housebreak them; their standards of personal hygiene are lamentably low, at least compared to cats; and large numbers of them cannot learn to "sit" without the aid of Ritalin.

I'm talking about children, of course, and while I can understand why many people would not one of these hairless and often incontinent bipeds in their homes, it is important to point out that they can provide considerable gratification. There's a three-year-old in my life, for example, who gives me many hours a week of playful distraction from the pressures of work. No matter how stressed I am, she can brighten my mood with her quavering renditions of the ABC song or "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

She has health insurance, as it turns out, and generally high quality care. But you can never be too sure. So I went to the website of VPI Pet Insurance, one of the nation's largest animal companion health insurers, to see what kind of a policy I could get for her. In the application form, I listed her as a three-year-old mixed breed dog -- a description made somewhat plausible by the fact that her first words, spoken at the remarkable age of 10 months, were "ruf ruf" and "doggie outside." When I completed the form and clicked to get a quote I was amazed to see that I get her a "premium" policy for a mere $33 a month.

But, you may be wondering, could a veterinarian handle common children's ills? On the hopeful side, let me cite the case, reported in June by Bob Herbert of the New York Times, of Diamonte Driver, a 12-year old boy who died recently from an abscessed tooth because he had no insurance and his mother could not afford $80 to have the tooth pulled. Could a vet have handled this problem? Yes, absolutely.

Or there's the case of 14-year old Devante Johnson, also reported by Herbert, who died when his health insurance ran out in the middle of treatment for kidney cancer. I don't know exactly what kind of treatment he was getting, but I suspect that the $1.25 million linear accelerator for radiation therapy available at one of New York's leading pet hospitals might have helped. The Times article also mentions a mixed breed named Bullwinkle who consumed $7,000 worth of chemotherapy before passing on to his reward. Surely Devante could have benefited from the same kind of high quality pet care, delivered at a local upscale animal hospital.

It may seem callous to focus on children when so many pets go uninsured and without access to CT-scans or underwater treadmills. But in many ways, children stack up well compared to common pets. They can shed real tears, like Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs. They can talk as well as many of the larger birds, or at least mimic human speech. And if you invest enough time in their care and feeding, they will jump all over you when you arrive at the door, yipping and covering your face with drool.

The Senate Finance Committee has approved a bill that would expand state health insurance coverage for children (S-CHIP) to include 3.2 million kids who are not now covered (but leaving about 6 million still uncovered.) Bush has promised to veto this bill, on the grounds that government should not be involved in health coverage. If Bush does veto the bill, the fallback demand should be: Open up pet health insurance to all American children now! Though even as I say this, I worry that the president will counter by proposing to extend euthanasia services to children who happen to fall ill.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/59483/

They are out there. Surely you have investigated this angle. Group coverage policies generally allow pre-existing conditions, however there may be a waiting period.

That said, yes our healthcare system is a corrupt piece of shit.

That said, your anger at people who have employers that offer decent benefits is misplaced. That isn't the problem, it is a symptom of the problem.

of gay employees. I believe my rant, although not entirely against them is fully justified.

for my husband who is a physician. Nothing. No one will insure him at any price and we have tried everything.

I've paid medical insurance all my life and have used it only for checkups, no real problems - where does all that money go? Certainly not to cover people like your husband. :mad:

is a licensed psychologist with his own practice. He got his HC insurance through the Chamber of Commerce of Pittsburgh. Both he & his wife have pre-existing conditions, and HE is a transplant patient! (Pancreas TP 7 years ago.) Have you checked with your local Chamber of Commerce? Yes it requires a membership fee, but there are quite a few advantages too.

GL

an established business with employees. I just work freelance.

is his wife who helps out making appointments and keeping the records. He "pays her" a whopping minimum wage just for income tax purposes. As far as I know the hamber negotiates deals with several ins. companies specifically so their members can get the group rates.

for it.

Pet insurance is just grasping at straws.

But don't worry: the U.S. will screw that up, too.

Must as the advent of human health insurance paved the way for a steep rise in health care costs, so pet insurance will pave the way for higher animal health costs. Pretty soon it will become so expensive that you can't have a pet without insurance, and sadly the number of people with pets will decrease.

In the past five years I paid over $7,000.00 for one cat's vet bills and about $3,500.00 for another. Vet insurance would have helped-but many plans require that you sign a long term contract, and that you keep paying for the "insurance" even if the pet dies before that contract is up. My vet has been complaining that he's lost a lot of clients over the past few years, but with gas prices, food costs, etc., many people simply can't afford an $80.00 trip to the vet for a quick routine checkup. It's sad, because for many people their pets are the only "family" that they have.

have a pet with a cronic ailment of somekind. I just paid $297 yesterday for one prescription of injectibles and an office call for my one little rescue doggie who is severely allergic to almost everything! Her food costs $50 a bag! Thank God that's the only problem she has. I know the office calls are now $60!

I have looked into pet insurance though, and it's NOT as great as it sounds. Unless you get it when your pet is very young and healthy, it's not available, and even then, a lot of things you would think would be covered aren't!

in regard to your adopted son- at the time of the adoption, was the MD already diagnosed? and also at the time of the adoption- was your other son's autism already diagnosed?

and at what point in all of it did you decide to go into business for yourself?

my brother-in-law had MD so there was a good chance his kid had it as well. We took the baby the day he was born so no he wasn't diagnosed yet. Yes I knew about my sons autism when I adopted my other child. As far as going into business for myself, I lost my job a couple years ago, I took some freelance work to keep me going and all of a sudden my skills seemed to be in demand and now I have more work than I can handle.

when i was diagnosed with an incurable congenital condition, i had a vasectomy. i felt that it would be unfair to burden another person with a lifetime of pain, just so that i could reproduce.

i assume your brother-in-law is dead? as far as medicare/SS is concerned- does the adoption change the status of any survivor or other benefits his son might be entitled to? :shrug:

would it help in getting group coverage if you incorporated and made your wife an "employee"?
this site has a link to a site that offers blue cross group coverage to small business of 2-50 people:
http://www.grouphealthinsure.com/?gclid=CNTT06Xb_Y8CFQHgPAod_TVmKQ

many universities have group coverage available to students- i'm not sure if that can be extended to family members, but if there's a school nearby where you or your wife could enroll in a class or two to qualify, it might be worth exploring if the option exists.

and when the dog died, they blamed the cause of death to be a pre-existing condition. I do not believe the pre-existing condition had anything to do with why the dog was sick and had to be put down.

What did I get out of this great "Pet Insurance"? Not jack f'ng sh*t!!

:dem:

than any others. The whole insurance industry is a scam. If it weren't for my kids I wouldn't even worry about it.

It was a total waste of money. I managed to get part of the premium back after the dog had been put down. They wouldn't pay for that either.

It was VIP Pet Insurance FYI. Stay the hell away from them.

If you cannot afford the cost of owning a pet (bills included) I figure you have no business owning one as pet insurance really didn't kick in and help me one tiny little bit and it was a huge hassle getting back part of the paid in full premium I might add. :mad:

It is no different than the rest of the health insurance scam plans we see for people.

If you have a pre-existing condition, you are wasting your money more than likely.

I checked it out intensively after moving back here from the UK, where we had FULL coverage for our pets for much less than what the cheapskate pet insurers here call "coverage". Yeah, if you're lucky (and Lucky isn't), you might get your money's worth out of it. But basically it's the same scheme as with people coverage: pay out the nose and hope whatever your best friend comes down with is one of the fully covered items. And be prepared for a fight.

The pay in -> pay out ratio is appalling in BOTH instances.

before dying.The cat before her had cancer and cost $5000.I wish we had pet insurance,we had to take out a loan. We are barely making it and have to pay $700 a month in Health Ins for 2 people.I think pet insurance is great if you can afford it and don't appreciate the love and care we feel for out fur kids being "mocked' I don't "mock " peoples feelings for their families.My pets are my family.