What Really Happened

I note that I talked about health insurance last summer, going COBRA and etc. I need to update the masses on what really happened. The company I worked for filed for bankruptcy six weeks after I'd finished chemo. I was still on the herceptin drug every three weeks, each infusion costing about $14K. No. Really. Thousand. I also had reconstructive surgery scheduled for three weeks out. Big chunk of change there, too.

I was "lucky" in that I landed on the list of people who would be retainedfor a while, so I wasn't among the vast majority of Aegis employees who were laid off just before bankruptcy filing. They were laid off with no severance, no payment for accrued vacation, and no warning. Just g'bye.

But as the bankruptcy was filed, the company also cancelled its master health care policy. If you don't know what this means, you need to know. It means that current and laid off employees could not "elect" COBRA benefits; you could not pay for your health insurance at a group rate, because there was no longer a group policy to COBRA from. Get it? Nada.

If you are relatively healthy with no pre-existing conditions, like, say breast cancer, you can buy a decent policy. If you have a job and some money. A lot of people didn't have a job. I had a job, but I was uninsurable because I was IN CANCER TREATMENT. Oh, and by the way, under current laws, I will never be able to buy my own policy again at reasonable rates.

I went into something called the Texas Risk Pool, administered these days by Blue Cross, and paid just under $1,000 per month for a policy that had some coverage, not nearly what I'd had previously had. Moreover, we started over with deductibles, so there was considerable cash outlay there.

However, I had a job, was getting a paycheck. And that was good. And Chuck had turned 65 in mid-July and was therefore sliding over into Medicare, thank goodness. Many, many of my colleagues with children and families were in a HUGE mess. It was simply awful.

Here's something else you need to know. One of my colleagues who got laid off was pretty certain he would be employed within a month or two. He decided that the smart thing might be to NOT buy another policy but to wait for the new job and get on that employer's policy. HOWEVER -- pay attention here -- he has a chronic but not serious medical condition. Had he gone WITHOUT insurance for more than 63 days, a new employer's insurance carrier, depending on its policies, could exclude his coverage for that condition for up to a year. Just for the hell of it. I am not kidding.

A side irony is that just before the bankruptcy of my company, I became very concerned about my own health coverage. Someone I knew had refilled one of my painkiller prescriptions in another city. Never mind how this happened, it happened. Because of my chemo-brain condition, and because it just never dawned on me that I was not the victim of identity theft, I did not make the connection immediately. I called the pharmacy and my doctor before I realized that the culprit was someone I knew. The HR guy at work was adamant: the insurance carrier had to be notified, my company's employment attorney called me in, and all hell broke loose. While I was ultimately assured that I wouldn't lose my coverage, the carrier and my employer were very interested in prosecuting the culprit. It would have been a federal charge, and there would have been nothing I could do about it.

The company's bankrupty and layoffs happened while I was stalling about giving the culprit's name. What a mess.

So, that said -- for Jeebus sake. Vote Democrat.