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Securing Health Care, Checking My Rights
Hello All!
I am a "Non Traditional" student attending a University, just 25, turning 26 in September. As such, on my 26th Birthday, I will no longer be eligible to be on my Parent's insurance.
Unfortunately, I have had very little luck discussing my options with my current health care provider - they are pretty much obfuscating the truth so that they can profit. As a student-hourly employee at my University, I am not entitled to benefits.
I do know that I can pay for health insurance with my University, but don't know what other options I have out there. Who can I talk to and get a straight answer about this? With the new Health Care act, a lot of laws are changing, and I don't know my options and rights. I don't believe National Health care is hitting until 2014, and I can't afford a lapse, because I have pre-existing conditions that will need to carry over to my next provider.
Help please!
Thank you
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Your options are, briefly:
1) An individual health plan through a private HMO or health insurance company.
Since you have pre-existing conditions, it is likely that this will be prohibitively expensive.
However, you might be able to get catastrophic or high-deductible coverage that is affordable and will help you cover emergencies.
You will have to contact those HMOs and health insurance companies individually to get quotes.
Colorado has a nice easy to use directory of health insurance companies available here: http://finder.healthcare.gov/?state=CO&x=11&y=13
2) Your university health insurance.
3) Get a job that offers health insurance.
4) If you make less than $27,925, you qualify for Colorado's indigent care program. This is not health insurance, but a way for you to get basic care through certain doctors and clinics in Colorado. http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/HCPF/HCPF/1214299805914
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Feral nailed it, but yeah $100 a month is a goddamn steal.
I don't know Colorado's underwriting regs off the top of my head, but you aren't going to get $100 a month premium on an individual plan anywhere with a pre-existing condition that doesn't have a FUCK YOU deductible.
(4:45 AM, sorry for Grammar.)
Which university? I had the one from CU and while it had some annoying hoops to jump through the coverage was decent. Limited providers, but if you're a college student they assume you're going to be within a certain distance of the university most of the time.
With a pre-existing condition, $175 is great until your state adopts the national health care model. My sister has a pre-existing condition, and the lowest quote she found for personal health care while unemployed was $875/month for emergency care only.
That was the compromise unfortunately. Though this might start teetering into a D&D style thread.
For just general education purposes. You can do catastrophic insurance, and it isn't bad in combination with a HSA, but it isn't very good. Essentially you hope you don't get sick the first couple of years while you try to get your HSA up to the level of your deductable, but after that it is generally a lot cheaper than an HMO or regular insurance, and you get a yearly physical and blood work done as well as prescription coverage, generally, but I have been told that the first couple of years you might as well not have insurance. If you got a reasonable HMO or PPO at 175 a month, I would do it.
I saw the $100/175 and was like "not bad" and then realized "wait we're talking monthly." My old university's health and dental coverage combined is $226.55 for the year now, apparently.
Sounds like you'll be fine through the university, and can take a look at things again when national options sort themselves out.