Our government at work...

Well, this story is not imaginary...my daughter had to go to the ER and she went to the hospital approved by my health insurance company. It was in the network, so the bill from the hospital was covered. Hurray! But, the doctors who work in the ER at the approved hospital are not under contract with my health insurance company, so their bill was not covered. I had to pay it. Now, my daughter did not have a choice in the matter. She couldn't go to the ER and request a different doctor. Neither the ER doctor nor my health insurance company bureaucrats would budge. I paid. So, I don't have to imagine that there can be problems with private health insurance that could be fixed by the government.

Or, when another of my daughters got her first job, she was covered by health insurance, but since she had a pre-existing condition, the health insurance company would not pay for her prescriptions and she had to choose between food or getting her meds. Now, we paid for her to get them because we could afford to, but there are some people where that might not have been the case. So, I don't have to imagine that the current system is not working very well.

Now, my daughter did not have a choice in the matter.

A similar thing happened to us, except it involved the NICU at the hospital where we brought her after she was born: the hospital participated but the NICU did not. And we didn't know. She was there five days at $500 / day.

But the real kicker was our ambulance ride to hospital: the insurance declined to cover my daughter because, in their words, "services not covered on patients of this age." What age is that, 30 minutes old?

The worst is yet to come; my husband has speculated to me that office visits will jump to $50.

But don't get me wrong: I'm very grateful for our coverage, just some aspects of the policy seem arbitrary.

But, Moonshadow, you do have coverage.

Yes, and I'm grateful ... I can't imagine life without it ... which makes me want it for everyone else too. You see. And even having coverage has its own spotty quirks.