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Last minute medical insurance drama from BCBS of KS!

BCBSKS - last minute medical insurance drama

This is a continuation from my last blog about the subject of medical insurance. We were going to accept the increased Blue Cross, Blue Shield premium, at $425.02 per month, a 66% price hike and the higher deductible, an over 1,100% increase, but that changed when I logged in to pay the premium and it said the renewal payment is $1,529, which for any ordinary American is way outside the realms of reality.

Of course, we find this out on December, 12, just days away from the cut off to get insurance for January 1. So we are in a panic, as we absolutely cannot be without insurance for my wife, Erin. My wife calls what she thought was the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, IT WAS NOT, when the guy immediately went into sales spiel for a specific insurance company, I knew it was not the ACA, despite the rep assuring us it was the Healthcare.gov marketplace, BE CAREFUL, these companies buy Google Adwords to trick people. Don’t call numbers at the top of the Google results, visit healthcare.gov, and call the number listed.

That PSA out of the way, Erin called the correct number, and we find out the reason the subsidy, known as the advanced premium tax credit was stopped, that was after five years, people have to reapply, filling out their financial details again. Neither the ACA nor Blue Cross, Blue Shield sent us any correspondence to tell us this vital nugget of information. In previous years, our premium had been adjusted based upon our previous year’s taxes, no interaction was required from us to continue to get the subsidy.

After filling out a new application on healthcare.gov, we were overwhelmed by options. Some under $100, but with super high out of pocket costs, and expensive premiums with lower deductibles and out of pocket expenses. But, nothing approaching what we had before, which was a max out of pocket of $1,400 per year, so, we went seeking professional help, and got an appointment on deadline day.

We had an appointment with Adam Clark of Design Benefits in Wichita, KS, and we highly recommend Adam, he was super helpful, answered all of our questions, and got us a decent plan, not amazing like in previous years, but the 2022 BlueCare EPO Silver 3 plan was discontinued. He probably saved us from making a mistake, we didn’t realize that not all insurance companies work with all doctors, and if we went with anything other than Blue Cross, Blue Shield, half of Erin’s doctors would not have been covered.

The plan we ended up with; BlueCare EPO Gold, has a $1,500 per person or $3,000 family deductible, $4,950 per person or $9,900 family max out of pocket and will cost us $658.17 with a $802.00 premium tax credit. If the ACA subsidy didn’t exist, we would be super screwed, like so many other Americans.

The main upside is that due to Erin’s health conditions, she gets a Social Security Disability Insurance payment of $1,419 per month, which covers the $658 premium, our consolidation loan payment, plus a couple of extra hundred dollars for paying down our deductible, leaving our salaries untouched to pay for everything else, which still leaves us with very little cash after our everyday cost of living expenses.

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