{"id":275,"date":"2012-02-20T20:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T00:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=275"},"modified":"2012-02-20T20:57:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T00:57:00","slug":"high-deductible-health-insurance-pinches-workers-from-both-sides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=275","title":{"rendered":"High-Deductible Health Insurance Pinches Workers From Both Sides"},"content":{"rendered":"

High-Deductible Health Insurance Pinches Workers From Both Sides<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This just in: High deductible health plans are like death panels!<\/span><\/p>\n

Like many Americans, Debbie Bass’ health insurance policy is utterly confounding: It’s more expensive than it used to be, but the coverage is worse and the rules just seem to get more arcane.<\/p>\n

Last year, her health plan paid for surgery, chemotherapy and radiation to treat her colorectal cancer. This year, her employer switched to a new plan, which won’t even pay for a $39 box of ostomy bags.<\/p>\n

Bass, a 57-year-old school bus driver from Hazlehurst, Ga., is among a rising number of Americans with shrinking health benefits and expanding deductibles. Bass said her new plan costs $333 per month to cover her and her husband, up from $210. The plan also comes with a staggering $3,000 deductible. Though her employer put $1,000 into an account to help pay for medical bills, Bass has already spent half of it on prescription drugs and other expenses. She’ll soon need to find an extra $2,000 before her insurance kicks in.<\/p>\n

Easier said than done. Bass takes home $395 a month. Her husband’s disability benefits bring in another $1,285. “We are completely broke,” she said. Her oncologist ordered a PET scan to check whether the cancer has stayed away, but she doesn’t know how much it costs or whether her plan will cover it. She’s going in for the test anyway.<\/p>\n

High-deductible health insurance is becoming more common, according to survey data reported by the Employee Benefit Research Institute last December. In 2011, 27.7 million working-age people were enrolled in a health plan with a deductible of at least $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for families. The proportion of insured Americans who have this type of coverage has more than doubled since 2005, the report says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Sent using Google Toolbar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High-Deductible Health Insurance Pinches Workers From Both Sides: This just in: High deductible health plans are like death panels! Like many Americans, Debbie Bass’ health insurance policy is utterly confounding: … Continue reading “High-Deductible Health Insurance Pinches Workers From Both Sides”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}