Paying For Small Indignities
Each month I pay $700 for health insurance. Does this make me an idiot?
Hi,
The piece I wrote last week about the chances of being rounded up and evicted (and/or detained) by the United States seems more… pressing.
To be clear: antisemitism is fucking horrible — and in that same breath I also wonder what today’s statement from The Department of Homeland security means for those of us who don’t support the genocide in Gaza:
By now I don’t need to point that the current administration’s definition of “antisemitism” is a wee bit flawed — and my writing here on Webworm (daring to suggest that wiping out Gaza and all the Palestinians in it is a fucking horrific move) may fall under it.
Now, onto the lighter topic I wanted to talk about.
Paying For Small Indignities
Each month I pay about $700 for health insurance.
$683.83 US dollars — or $1,210 NZ dollars — to be exact.
I do this because I don’t want to be bankrupted if I am hit by a car or have high caliber bullets pass through my body in a mass shooting.
When I first got to the US, I got the cheapest health insurance I could find at $360 a month — but as I wrote previously, when I had to see an expert about my dicey spinal column, it proved utterly unusable.
So I upgraded Blue Shield’s “Silver 1750 PPO” plan, which promised to be more flexible. I was too scared to look at what the Gold plan would cost.
Increasingly, I’m wondering if it’s worth it, because everything I do in the world of American healthcare still costs money. If I need to see my GP, it takes a month to book him in and costs $55.
The last time I went in, I tried to pack in as much as possible, asking him to burn a tiny disgusting wart of my little finger. He grabbed a canister of liquid nitrogen, blasted my finger for 15 seconds, then gave me a bandaid which I applied myself. I assumed the $55 would cover it.
It didn’t.
I think I keep paying for these small indignities until I hit my deductible, which is $1750. If I go to a healthcare profession not covered by my insurance I have to hit $7000.
I figure this year if I pack in some physical therapy for my stupid spine I might hit it before it gets reset?
If I cut my insurance off, I could put that $8,205.95 aside — using it for an urgent care walk-in if I get sick and need pills.
But I keep paying because, well, America. If shit goes down and I’m uninsured, then it’s kinda game over. It’s a gamble I’m not yet willing to take. At least I can’t get pregnant, I guess.
This week I discovered Blue Shield had kindly passed on my personal health information to a “third party” who may have “accessed, acquired, used or disclosed” it. This was a bonus feature in my monthly $683.83 that I hadn’t been aware of.
They left me with an array of tasks to complete if I wanted to protect myself, including “closely reviewing” my statements and credit reports for the next year, and placing fraud alerts on my account.
My insurer, who takes $683.83 a month for their services, told me all this respectfully.
I responded, respectively:
And here’s the thing — I’m one of the lucky ones. I am able to afford to pay for this health insurance plan, so that if I’m shot or run over I probably won’t go bankrupt.
But still — I wonder. I wonder if it’s worth it.
And I wonder why most voting Americans continue to be repulsed by universal healthcare. I mean, I know why of course — here in America, if bad things happen to you it’s your fault and you deserve it. You pay to fix your broken body, because you chose to be in that accident.
This is the other side to the American dream — another juxtaposition, another injustice — and it’s almost enough to make you a little bit mad.
David.
PS: I know it’s tempting to go “why the hell are you remaining in the US” and look, I get it, but I’d also point back to my explanation towards the bottom of this piece.
A stray thought I have pinned:
If ANYONE here who is paying for Webworm who is also dealing with bonkers medical costs
- you should *never ever* pay for Webworm.
Email me and I will comp you, anyone: davidfarrier@protonmail.com
I've spent so much time lately thinking of how much our (meaning the general voting population; media; government) perceptions of what government should be doing for the population has changed in New Zealand, and also in pretty much every 'Western' democracy.
In the post-WW2 era (and even before) it was understood that the government needed to invest in the nation to create an environment that fostered growth and and established a firm foundation for society. This was true everywhere. There was also an understanding that government needed to have a moderating role in commerce and capitalism in order to help balance the relative power of consumers vs. businesses.
But that's been eroding. Arguably the US leads the way in that erosion, but again it's true everywhere. We keep being hit by austerity policies that put the people in a worse position in order to ensure continuity of growth for corporations.
Government programs that supported social progress and created stable infrastructure have been privatised and shrunk.
Healthcare in the US is a really spectacular example of both the issue — a refusal to invest or interfere by the government that creates a worse situation for society as a whole in favour of private commerce — and also of the political and media narratives that have firmly taken root in order to support that status quo.
Across Western democracies it's an accepted truism that right-aligned governments are "better for the economy" when the evidence is weak at best, and entirely lacking if we want to consider the economy on any terms beyond just share prices and stock dividends.
Anyway... That is to say, it sucks that your insurance, like all US health insurance from what I can tell, is shit. And it's the most obvious symptom of a much bigger and continuing failure of imagination and policy.
Come home soon :)