Do You Have Health Insurance?
Some people have health insurance, and some people don’t. Do you have health insurance?
• Greg Barto
I didn’t have it for years, but I have it now through my job. I pay $50 to $75 per paycheck, I think. I don’t know how much it costs to go to the doctor because I haven’t been.
• Zack Cohn
I have Easy Choice Health Plan aka Healthy NY (it has two names I guess?). It costs $241.44/month. I have a $20 copay. I believe I get one physical a year covered and I recently found out that I have some network of bottom-tier doctors I can visit and receive some measure of coverage from, but I haven’t investigated it yet.
• Mike Dang Mine just ended last week! So I’m going to have to find something that will work for me and my left ventricular arrythomogenic cardiomyopathy. Or pay $700 a month for COBRA.
• William Foster
I do not have health insurance, as I am immortal and immune to injury and disease.
• Carrie Frye
Yes — my husband and I have insurance through our corporation (employees: us). Having a corporation with just two employees is probably overkill, and the paperwork is a pain, but one benefit is that the company can pay for health insurance. We pay $800/monthly for a shared policy, which is high! I don’t know — I looked rickety to the insurance company. Also: We keep a who-knows-might-have-a-baby rider on there that adds a couple hundred dollars a month (my understanding is that if a baby never materializes, the insurance eventually refunds you a $50 Zingerman’s gift certificate).
I have insurance through the Freelancers Union/Blue Cross, and I pay $319/month. I think I can see a doctor for $35.
• Emily Gould I have Freelancer’s Union insurance. I pay around $400 a month. For more incomprehensible information see here. My plan is PPO 3.
• Cord Jefferson I do indeed have health insurance through my employer. I have the HMO plan, which costs me somewhere around $32 per month. If I’m remembering correctly, my plan has no deductible and a copay limit of $1,750. And my annual out of pocket maximum is $2,000. Of course, this could all be incorrect. The details tend to be hazy, as I avoid going to the doctor unless I need to crawl there (I’ve also been very lucky to be healthy for most of my adult life).
• Lisa Lenner
I have it through work. I pay about $66 per paycheck ($132/month). It’s a PPO, which I probably don’t need… but I like having it. Two years ago when I got my tonsils out, I didn’t have to pay for any of that, which is awesome since it was a totally optional surgery. I didn’t need my tonsils out. I just didn’t have anything to do at work.
• Bennett Madison I get insurance the most practical way — by having a day job! I don’t pay anything for it because my boss pays the whole thing. Before I had a day job, I was going to get it through the Author’s Guild which at the time seemed relatively cheap, but I never got around to it.
• Amy Merrick Girl you always know the questions to ask to make me feel crazy. No insurance.
• Jennifer Pan
I am fortunate enough that my job gives me health insurance! I’ve never bought my own — just lived stupidly without any insurance when it wasn’t employer-sponsored. 🙁
• Matt Powers I am still on my parent’s health insurance thanks to President Obama increasing the amount of time children can stay on their parent’s health insurance (26). I’m only really insured in Massachusetts, so I can only go to hospitals or “urgent care” if I’m in an accident or really sick or something, and then I have to pay the copay which is usually like $20-$40, but because I am incredibly healthy I’ve only used it once while living in New York. I don’t pay for my health insurance because I am not a person.
• Bryan Rogers
At my last job, I paid $0. The company paid 100% of all premiums for employees and all dependents (!!!). That’s pretty much unheard of. At my new job, I pay $45/month.
• Nancy Rommelmann Yes, I have health insurance. Here’s why and how: As a freelancer, it was never available to me. I mostly scraped by without, as did my husband Din, who never in his life had it. Then he launched Ristretto Roasters , and we figured we’d offer it. We use Kaiser, an HMO, with a $3k deductible, but you get pretty much everything taken care of for a $25 copayment when you visit. We provide it for our employees if they work 30 hours a week or more. They pay $52 from each paycheck (every two weeks), so $104 a month, which we match. It does not include dental, but it’s seriously great coverage, everything from routine tests to surgery. We’ve been really happy with it. We can also cover people’s spouses (domestic partner or marriage) and kids. It’s by the person so, for instance, Din, Tafv and I pay a family rate of $624/month, because of course we are paying our own copayment. Din and I could pocket the money we pay for our employees and take an extra trip to Maui, but as my dad says, we offer it because it’s the right thing to do, and because no one ever did it for us.
• Alex Sachon
I have an independent plan through Kaiser Permanente. It was $132, but they just increased it to $164. I’ve never used it once. I called, and they said in order to find out why, I had to FAX THEM. I understand on some level why health care costs keep rising, but for bare bones health care, for someone who NEVER HAS USED IT, why on earth should it increase each year? I find it really upsetting.
• Logan Sachon I have a plan through PacificSource, which is a company based in the Pacific Northwest. I got it when I lived in Portland and they haven’t kicked me off yet even though I no longer live in Portland. I pay $132 a month, and I can go to the doctor for $30, but have to pay for all tests and everything because my deductible is $5,000. I’ve never reached it, probably because my policy doesn’t cover mental health, and that’s where all my medical dollars go.
• Nozlee Samadzadeh I didn’t have it and now I do! I’m on my parents’ health insurance because it doesn’t cost them extra for me to be on it. I actually thought about it a lot before doing it — I WANTED to be independent, but it added $6,000 to my salary not to have insurance through work, and doesn’t cost my parents anything extra. Hooray Obama!
• Angela Serratore I have health insurance through school (I am pretty sure people only go to grad school for health insurance). I pay 700 bucks a semester, which is a not-small amount to me, but any appointment I make with a school doctor is free — general practitioner stuff, but also I go to a university with pretty great medical facilities, so I’ve yet to need a specialist that hasn’t existed on campus. Co-pay for not-at-school doctors is 20 bucks, and I think I paid 10 dollars for my last prescription?
• Choire Sicha I have it through Aetna and pay $150/month. I went with it because it cheap and easy. It covers like nothing in the day-to-day, but after a huge deductible, it covers 100%. Like, if I get cancer, I spend $5K. Then it covers everything.
• Eric Spiegelman I have been a 1099 for a few years so no benefits. I got a private policy from UnitedHealthcare (which is PacificCare in California). My premium is like $200 — not sure exactly how much because I have the bill on autopay so my coverage never lapses. I’m stuck in traffic right now so can’t check my deductible, but I know my copay is $40. At the moment I do not have dental insurance or vision. Once upon a time I was on TimeWarner’s rockstar policy, which would send an ambulance if I stubbed a toe, and I tried to keep that on COBRA until I realized it cost $650 per month. COBRA: not really that helpful!
• Edith Zimmerman I have Freelancers Union insurance, and I pay $345 a month. I have a $30 co-pay and … I’m not sure the other stuff! Shit.
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