With or without?
I have been on both sides of the coin (and I found out recently that I am abruptly without…but that is another story, fml).
And honestly, it is easier without. I understand why people aren’t signing up for Obamacare. Insurance is a pain in the ass. Sometimes literally. It can give you diarrhea. See this post here.
My year without insurance…hmm..I probably didn’t get the BEST care possible. But I received adequate treatment for my condition. Steroids have been around forever. They are cheap. Methotrexate has been around forever. It’s cheap. At one point the doc wanted to try a RA med, but because I was uninsured, I couldn’t have access to it. But it wasn’t life or death, and it didn’t make a difference in the outcome.
Now, I do owe something like $20,000 in medical bills. I did have to come off some of my maintenance medication (such as Topamax for migraines) but there are ways to obtain expensive meds. That paperwork sucks too, but again, it is possible. I obtained my Lyrica and my migraine meds (Treximet) for free by sending in proof that had virtually no income and a script.
It helps that I’m a nurse. I know what signs and symptoms are dangerous. My docs trust me to monitor myself, my blood pressure, to titrate my meds on my own. So that makes a difference.
Since I have had insurance (since Novemeber). It has been a pain in the ass to get ANYTHING fucking covered. Meds, doctors visits, procedures. I have to prove everything. Prove that I have this. Prove that I need that. I have scanned countless receipts, doctors notes, etc into their “easy to use” data base to get shit paid for. And now I don’t have insurance because the mother of my bonus son doesn’t have his birth certificate and we couldn’t get it from the state in time to make the deadline.
So instead of kicking him off the insurance (he has other coverage, we were just trying to get him BETTER coverage), they kicked us all off. I went to get my meds the other day and was absolutely shocked at the cash price. So now I’m paying by the pill until it gets straightened out.
So yes, insurance can be a lovely thing. But it can also give as many migraines as it prevents.
true life is stranger than fiction.. 