Spouse's former company will cease to exist next month, and with it our COBRA. (No company = no plan = no self-funded part of plan.)
Have I mentioned that medical insurance is insane, y'all? I have? Was I the first? Because, y'all. It's insane.
Since this counts as an eligible life-event, we can sign up for coverage under the ACA. We technically have 60 days from the date of the life-event, but who wants to be uninsured for that length of time? And who wants to continue to pay against a deductible that's not going to be applicable in 30-90 days?
Because insurance is a Big Freaking Adult Deal with a Big Freaking Adult Price Tag, I am Freaking the Adult Out. Seriously. Woke up before 3 a.m. Saturday and decided I had to at least start the research; spent seven hours online, creating and populating an Excel workbook to compare up to five plans. Took a break for a sandwich and a shower at about 10 a.m. and then spent another four hours refining the spreadsheet and looking for answers, but I think I know which plan we'll pick. It's a PPO from Anthem, ACA bronze level; another high-deductible plan, a little bit cheaper than COBRA, coverage just a little worse -- except for the dental, which is non-existent. We're on our own there.
I can't say whether it's due to the lawyers, the corporations, or the government regulations -- or maybe just ornery human nature -- but detailed information on these various plans was hard to come by and difficult to compare. I think the ACA has to have made it a bit easier: by imposing minimum standards of coverage, it eliminated the fine print I had to wade through, and provided some uniformity to the way the information was presented. But overall it was a bear, and a grizzly at that. I had to check numerous sites, and numerous different pages in those sites. I repeatedly had to look up terms to get plain-English definitions, instead of "definitions" that referenced more industry jargon. I can't imagine how intimidating and overwhelming it would be for someone who's not a data-centric geek. We have to do better.
And there were two quite vital types of information that were basically inaccessible: provider lists, and pharmaceutical formularies. These are important! It's basically cheating not to include them! Every plan I looked at had in-network and out-of-network coverage differences, yet not one had available a list of the providers in their networks. Similarly, every plan had tiered medication coverage, but no list of medications covered and their tiers. There was one site where I could enter my providers -- one at a time -- to check if they were part of the network, and one site that let me enter medications -- one at a time, and by the chemical/brand name, not by type -- to check if they were covered and in which tier. Time-consuming and tedious.
After almost 12 hours of rummaging through data to get and record the information I need, calculating max costs per plan and running scenarios based on average provider and pharmacy costs from 2017, I'm thoroughly sick of the details. I suspect there's no better plan for us out there, but I know that I don't have the patience or the fortitude to keep looking.
Before I pull the trigger, I've asked Spouse to contact Human Resources at Former Company to get an end date for COBRA. If it will run through the end of March, it could make sense for us to try to get dental checkups in the next few weeks so we have time to get any fillings, etc., before we have no more dental insurance. If not, I think it would make a little more sense financially to drop COBRA and switch to the new plan for March. Might as well get started meeting that deductible.
UPDATE.
Dateline: several days later.
Headline: Spouse contacted Former Company as requested, and it turns out, COBRA is very much alive.
Yup. Holding Company, which owned Former Company, is no more come March, but Former Company was spun off into an independent entity and so is not included in that closure.
Or something. There was a lot of business and legal jargon, and I don't have the paperwork in front of me, and mainly I think I didn't pay good attention because I was in a fog of resentment over spending half my weekend on pointless research, not to mention the bubbling terror that fueled that research. The take-away is not that I wasted time and energy (oh yes it is) but that COBRA should be in force through 2018. At approximately $2,000 a month. Yay...?
Have I mentioned that medical insurance is insane, y'all? I have? Was I the first? Because, y'all. It's insane.
Since this counts as an eligible life-event, we can sign up for coverage under the ACA. We technically have 60 days from the date of the life-event, but who wants to be uninsured for that length of time? And who wants to continue to pay against a deductible that's not going to be applicable in 30-90 days?
Because insurance is a Big Freaking Adult Deal with a Big Freaking Adult Price Tag, I am Freaking the Adult Out. Seriously. Woke up before 3 a.m. Saturday and decided I had to at least start the research; spent seven hours online, creating and populating an Excel workbook to compare up to five plans. Took a break for a sandwich and a shower at about 10 a.m. and then spent another four hours refining the spreadsheet and looking for answers, but I think I know which plan we'll pick. It's a PPO from Anthem, ACA bronze level; another high-deductible plan, a little bit cheaper than COBRA, coverage just a little worse -- except for the dental, which is non-existent. We're on our own there.
I can't say whether it's due to the lawyers, the corporations, or the government regulations -- or maybe just ornery human nature -- but detailed information on these various plans was hard to come by and difficult to compare. I think the ACA has to have made it a bit easier: by imposing minimum standards of coverage, it eliminated the fine print I had to wade through, and provided some uniformity to the way the information was presented. But overall it was a bear, and a grizzly at that. I had to check numerous sites, and numerous different pages in those sites. I repeatedly had to look up terms to get plain-English definitions, instead of "definitions" that referenced more industry jargon. I can't imagine how intimidating and overwhelming it would be for someone who's not a data-centric geek. We have to do better.
And there were two quite vital types of information that were basically inaccessible: provider lists, and pharmaceutical formularies. These are important! It's basically cheating not to include them! Every plan I looked at had in-network and out-of-network coverage differences, yet not one had available a list of the providers in their networks. Similarly, every plan had tiered medication coverage, but no list of medications covered and their tiers. There was one site where I could enter my providers -- one at a time -- to check if they were part of the network, and one site that let me enter medications -- one at a time, and by the chemical/brand name, not by type -- to check if they were covered and in which tier. Time-consuming and tedious.
After almost 12 hours of rummaging through data to get and record the information I need, calculating max costs per plan and running scenarios based on average provider and pharmacy costs from 2017, I'm thoroughly sick of the details. I suspect there's no better plan for us out there, but I know that I don't have the patience or the fortitude to keep looking.
Before I pull the trigger, I've asked Spouse to contact Human Resources at Former Company to get an end date for COBRA. If it will run through the end of March, it could make sense for us to try to get dental checkups in the next few weeks so we have time to get any fillings, etc., before we have no more dental insurance. If not, I think it would make a little more sense financially to drop COBRA and switch to the new plan for March. Might as well get started meeting that deductible.
UPDATE.
Dateline: several days later.
Headline: Spouse contacted Former Company as requested, and it turns out, COBRA is very much alive.
Yup. Holding Company, which owned Former Company, is no more come March, but Former Company was spun off into an independent entity and so is not included in that closure.
Or something. There was a lot of business and legal jargon, and I don't have the paperwork in front of me, and mainly I think I didn't pay good attention because I was in a fog of resentment over spending half my weekend on pointless research, not to mention the bubbling terror that fueled that research. The take-away is not that I wasted time and energy (oh yes it is) but that COBRA should be in force through 2018. At approximately $2,000 a month. Yay...?
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