Do you have a link?Quote:
Originally Posted by crashdown
Speaking of discount cards, you can just hop online and order some, for free, from where ever. We've used them before and they work and save you money.
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Do you have a link?Quote:
Originally Posted by crashdown
Speaking of discount cards, you can just hop online and order some, for free, from where ever. We've used them before and they work and save you money.
https://mychristiancare.org/medi-share/Quote:
Originally Posted by Irving
Thank you
We have been using Medi-share for a couple years now. I'm not one to give advise on this subject as my better half does all that stuff!! From my experience we have encountered good things and not so good things. Recently we would have been better off doing self pay at our pediatricians office as that bill would have been $110 self pay vs. $171 through Medi-share. Also, I had an ER visit and I called to ask if the hospital was in network and what cost would be expected. They told me it was in network and I'd only have to pay my ER copay but that ended up being a $900 bill later. On the flip side of that, it went to my deductible. In the end we believe its much better than conventional insurance as it dropped my monthly premium from around $1300 a month($6000 deductible) to $700($2500 deductible) for my little family of three!
I think we're (3) paying around $700 a month already.
Didn't you just pay $6,000 for three stiches?
I fail to see any benefit in paying for "insurance." It's extorsion, plain and simple.
-John
Yep. Feels great. We don't even have dental either and I've had over $1,000 in dental this year alone and that's just me, not including my kid's regular dental visits.
I'd say that if we were in a car accident or something, that's where the insurance comes into play, or some injury that would prevent me from working. I could probably manage $10,000, but anything over that and I'd be in real trouble. That's the thing with health insurance and why the concept of those catastrophic polices has grown in popularity. At this age, I would never go to the doctor unless I'm dying from sickness, broke something, or am bleeding. However, between big game hunting, working on roofs and in damaged structures, and just the amount of time I spend driving, my risk level climbs.
I actually cut myself almost as severely about a week after the stitches (still had them in) on my other hand, but I sure as heck wasn't going back in. I hadn't even gotten the bill yet but I knew I wouldn't make that mistake again.
Obviously there are a ton of scenarios for people such as self employed, employer only has one option, etc. But as someone in the healthcare field I will say that in MOST cases the best option, if available, is a high deductible HSA plan. Most employers pay around $1k into it each year some are way better than that even. Anything you pay in is basically tax deductible so if you are in a 20 percent or so tax bracket when you work it all out its almost like you are getting 20 percent into your hsa for free. It carries over, you never lose it. So if you are pretty healthy and things rarely come up you can easily get into the 10k range after two or three years with minimal cost. The premiums are usually fairly low. And just because it's high deductible doesnt mean things aren't still covered before the deductible. My 4 year old broke his arm and the urgent care in network visit was $950 for xrays, splint, etc but our bill was only $150. >it costs me 200 per month in premiums for 4 with a 4k deductible and 9k max out of pocket. Once you hit the 4k you pay 10 percent up to 9k. Obviously every employer is different but I had a lot of options and that was definitely the best.
All things considered I think some of ben Carson's meeical plan was a decent idea. Basically hsa at birth that Carrie's on forever and can be used to pay premiums. I would even be on board with small government help into the hsa because it would allow you to keep the costs down to tax payers. Give people tax breaks on them. It puts the money in their control so they can make decisions on what to use it on and what to bypass as opposed to things like Medicaid where people never see the costs so they use it on anything and everything they can.
I should mention the high deductible hsa plans are goo if you are overall pretty healthy. If you have a chronic condition or genetic disease or something you have to carefully weigh that because you may end up spending more in the long run.
I will add that if you go the HSA route and have it at a place that allows you can actually invest the funds. I'm not paid to plug them but I use Optum Banking for mine. You're allowed $3,450 (more if above 55 years old) per year HSA contributions from all sources. My work put about half of that in each year divided by each paycheck and I put the rest in out of my own pocket. You're also allowed to contribute it all at once in the calendar year so if you work with your employer right now to offer a high deductible insurance option before the end of the year and set up an HSA you can literally drop $3,450 in in a single paycheck if you can swing it at year's end to get it going. Get your balance up to twice whatever your deductible is ($3k in my case) and then anything above that goes into mutual funds. You now have a secondary retirement account if you're maxing out your 401k contributions. The best part is you can reimburse yourself for medical expenses whenever. If they're smaller you can pay out-of-pocket and let that money sit in your mutual fund generating interest. Two decades from now that $10 for a prescription will be worth $50 or more. Doesn't sound like much but extrapolate that over sever scripts, Dr visits, massages & other medical expenses. It adds up. Just know that, like with any investments, the potential to lose money also exists but if you believe that over time the stock market will be worth more than it is today it's a solid route to go IMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by tmckay2
$50 for a prescription 20 years from now. That amuses me. I have prescriptions that are $400/month now.
...maybe in 20 years they'll be generics. [Coffee]
No, I'm saying that $10 you leave in the investment will be worth $50 20 years from now. My Coumadin is $10 now & my doctor's want to put me on the ones that are $400/mo. No thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gman
Xarelto, eliquis and pradaxa have manufacturer coupons to split the cost with your insurance and can often make them very affordable though not always. When you consider fewer clinic visits for INR checks it sometimes balances out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jer
PM me what scripts. I'm a pharmacist and might be able to find a way to make them cheaper. Not at my pharmacy either just in general.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gman
That being said I see meds that expensive all the time so it might be a SOL situation.
Trust me, I've already been through all of this. $10 for a 3 month supply of Coumadin and getting my blood drawn every other month for $15 cash is substantially cheaper than the cheapest method of getting any of those other three. I'm counting down the days when generics will be allowed for them because then maybe I can justify the cost but as of right now it's just insane. I'm on coumadin and that crap has been around forever so the interactions are well-known & everyone knows how to deal with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by tmckay2
So does your insurance pay zero on them? Because if they pay anything there's a good chance to get any of the 3 for around $25
Health care costs are astronomical now. We had our 3rd baby in December last year, a C section. Between the hospital bill for mom, the hospital bill for baby and the baby doctor bill for everything leading up to the birth, the total bill was over $38k. Family deductable is $6,000 and out-of-pocket max is $12k so it was a pricey one. So well over $20k last year for medical bills and premiums combined. WTF.
My 1st daughter was born in 2009 and cost us $1,000 out of pocket, all in. (and our premiums were a fraction of what they are now). My, how times have changed. F U Obama care.
I was pleasantly surprised today b/c my company did not raise my rates.
Now a few of us are wondering if we'll get raises.
If you're on multiple scripts, Coumadin interacts with damn near everything (including your diet), and they're pretty significant interactions. With some of the new boutique blood thinners, what can be a very long list of risky interactions on Coumadin could be significantly reduced to a couple of moderates. Another advantage is when you come off the blood thinners for surgery and go back on again after surgery. Going back on Coumadin can mean quite a few days of Lovenox injections while taking Coumadin to get your levels up. With the newer blood thinners, you can be back to thinned out in a single dose before you leave the hospital.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jer
I understand the cons of Coumadin but there are also pros. The fact that it's been around for so long means that the interactions you mention are very well known and for someone like me who is healthy (they still don't know how I ended up with PE in the first place) and only on one med it doesn't really matter. It's inexpensive, consistent and if I get into a car accident or something the antidote is likely not far away since so many are on it Vitamin K and how to use it is common. The interactions with the newer drugs still aren't fully known and they also don't have an antidote for them should it be needed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gman
I'm not anticipating any surgeries or other hospital stays so coming off and going back on isn't in the future. I did have a couple of oral surgeries while on it though and got pretty good at knowing how much to cut and when to get my INR right under the 1.8 that the Doctor wanted me at prior to surgery. No Lovenox shots afterwards either as I was able to get it back within the therapeutic range (2.0-3.0 for me) pretty easily. Even if I had to give the shots again for a couple of weeks it's not the end of the world and a couple weeks of those is still cheaper than a single month of the self-leveling meds.
The most paramount thing for me though is what I've already mentioned; price. I can pay about $3/mo for Coumadin or about $400/mo for one of the others. Coupons get it down to a little less than half of that but it's still no comparison. I'm not paying that per month for benefits that I personally won't ever see. Maybe years from now if I need to be on another medication, I get insurance that covers it, generics become available or something becomes life threatening I'll consider it.
As of now I'm not too concerned about it and I'm quite happy with my $10 prescription that lasts me three months that I'm not even sure I need to be on to begin with.
In many cases there are lots of medications available and each affects a person differently and has different pros and cons. For me, this one just works. I don't lose sleep over not being able to take one of the others instead (a couple of years ago I was more concerned about it because I thought it was a bigger deal than I soon realized it was) and it's not really something I think about unless it comes up in conversation like this. I eat well, workout 6 days a week, live an active lifestyle and take care of myself. To me, that's the single most important factor to one's health.
This wasn't a thread about any of this though. I was just talking about how useful a HSA is and how you can have that money work for you and take advantage of compounding interest in yet another form of "retirement" account if you play your cards right.
My wife was on coumadin and they wanted her INR to be between 3.5 and 4.0. Was more difficult to maintain at that level. Glad to hear it works for you.
Mine was a lot more difficult early on because they were afraid to keep upping my dosage. I was doing the shots for quite a while in fact and the day I went in and it was 1.9 when I needed to be at 2.0 to get off the shots I almost went postal especially since it was a Friday and I had ONE shot of Lovenox left. I had to go refill that expensive ass prescription to get me through another couple of weeks while I waited for that INR number to get to 2.0 or higher. Now that I'm comfortably within range (almost dead on 2.5 every time now) I'm less inclined to change things up at this point. I put in the time/money investment so now that I've got the data I'm good until something serious comes along to derail it. By then I'll have other options I'm sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gman
But yeah, back to the topic at hand. HSA's are dope and everyone should have one!
Im on Xarelto and also have CHM. The only problem is the coupon program requires real insurance with Copays and won't work with CHM. So I buy using a canadian pharmacy - $500/qtr. Thats a lot but quite a bit less than the local pharmacies and given the CHM excellent costs, manageable.Quote:
Originally Posted by tmckay2
My wife gets her plaquenil ($170/mth through medicare) from a Canadian pharmacy for $35/mth
I went to Mexico and saw a Doctor for $8. He wrote me a prescription. I got the prescription filled for $184. The drugs in the US cost $135K. Yeah it was a bit scary. The VA & military refused to help. eff them and everybody like them...
There is much to still be proud of about this country and our lives, and lifestyle.
Most certainly eff all aspects of the gov that doesn't take care of it's Vets and their needs, that shit pisses me off big time.
I'm just saying if the drug prices are too high, or the doctors are just incompetent, go south of the border. $135,000 for these medications is absurd. Mr.Shkreli of Turing pharmaceutical has been jailed. And no...I don't have AIDS.
https://www.hiv.va.gov/provider/hivm...imethamine.asp
Pharma-Bro.
The state of our health care just sucks for the masses.
Justice Department sides with court ruling Obamacare invalid
Quote:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced that it is siding with a district court ruling that found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.
The move is an escalation of the Trump administration's legal battle against the health care law.
The DOJ previously argued in court that the law's pre-existing condition protections should be struck down. Now, the administration argues the entire law should be invalidated.
U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor ruled in December that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the rest of law is therefore invalid.
The DOJ said Monday that it agrees the decision should stand as the case works its way through the appeals process in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
"The Department of Justice has determined that the district court's judgement should be affirmed," the department said in a short letter to the appeals court.
The move is certain to prompt new denunciations from Democrats, who had already seized on the Trump administration's earlier call for the pre-existing condition protections to be struck down.
That stance was a major issue in last year's midterm elections, and many Republican candidates in tough races struggled with whether to say they agreed with the Trump administration's position.
Many legal experts in both parties think the lawsuit, which was brought by 20 GOP-led states, will not ultimately succeed. The district court judge who ruled against the law in December is known as a staunch conservative.
The case centers on the argument that since Congress repealed the tax penalty in the law's mandate for everyone to have insurance in 2017, the mandate can no longer be ruled constitutional under Congress's power to tax. The challengers then argue that all of ObamaCare should be invalidated because the mandate is unconstitutional.
Most legal experts say legal precedent shows that even if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional, the rest of ObamaCare should remain unharmed, as that is what Congress voted to do in the 2017 tax law that repealed the mandate's penalty.