Medical Costs Are a Scourge

I made a critical mistake and choose a different type of insurance offered from my company in an effort to try and cut costs and save money.  In the end this backfired and my medical expenses have risen into the thousands of out of pocket costs.  Word of the wise to my readers, read the fine print and always assume there will be unexpected medical costs.  When thinking on whether you want to go with a PPO or a Health Care Spending account (HRA) consider the pros and cons as compared to an HMO or EPO type of health care plan.

Plans where you pay a percentage of the cost add up fast if there are high medical costs and you should always try to have reserve money in your savings to cover unexpected emergencies such as medical bills, car problems or house problems.  All I can do now is try to play catch up with my medical bills and switch my insurance plan when open enrollment comes around for 2011.  In the meantime I will be using my blogging income to help cover and pay down some high medical bills and it will be  a while before I can start to save for my blogging goals again.

I can’t even imagine how hard it is for the people who have no insurance and get stuck with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical expenses, I have always thought that there should be something done about the healthcare industry.  It just isn’t right that you can go from making an honest living and providing for the family to utter ruin from one unforeseen medical expense, and I support a health care plan option that would allow heathcare to be offered to everyone in the country.  I don’t necessarily agree with the plan that is being put in place, but I still think it is better than nothing and everyone should have coverage.  People complain that they shouldn’t be penalized for purchasing health insurance, but truth is that it is mandatory to have auto insurance in all states I think.  This is to protect those who are injured, someone who goes to a hospital and is uninsured costs the states tens of thousands of dollars and this adds up to millions of dollars in taxpayer money to pay for people who are not insured.  So complain about not having to pay into a healthcare system all you want, but you are paying for others healthcare anyway whether you realize it or not.  Why not pay into it and at least get full healthcare coverage.

-Justin Germino