This post was originally going to be about how I think I am getting ripped off by my health insurance company, until I really started doing the math. Recently, my 14-month-old daughter has started physical therapy. She has loose tendons and joints in her knees and ankles, making her feel unstable and preventing her from crawling or walking. Physical therapy costs about $200/visit or $800/month. My husband and I will have to pay a $1000 deductible before our insurance will kick in, and then the insurance will pay up to $1500. So, our daughter will receive about 2 months of "free" physical therapy, and then we will have to begin paying out of pocket again or relying on the state to help us with alternative sources of funding. This made me irate at first, until I realized that if the insurance company continued to pay for my daughter's therapy every month, they would be paying out the exact amount that we pay in each month for our entire family's health care coverage.
So I guess my anger should really be directed at the hospital that provides the physical therapy for charging such an exorbitant amount. I know the physical therapist doesn't make $200/hr and even if you figure in overhead, someone somewhere is making an awful lot of money off of our family's misfortune.
It seems like all we hear about lately is how our health care system is broken in this country. It seems like there are stories about it in the news everyday. It is easy to tune all that out after awhile, until it hits home. Here are a few quick facts:
- Health insurance for a family of four averages about $10,000/year
- The cost of health insurance as gone up 36% since 2000. Average earnings have gone up 12.4%
- There were 47 million uninsured people in this country in 2006
For further reading:
In the interest of being honest with myself and others, I should admit that all this energy spent on being angry at the insurance companies, the health care system, etc. is probably a way to avoid dealing with the more important issue at hand. I am not sure how to cope with having a child that is not "normal." No one expects this to happen to them, at least I didn't. How do I deal with people who act surprised when I tell them how old she is? What if the physical therapy doesn't work? What if she doesn't develop normally in other areas? Is this somehow my fault? I don't want to seek out the answers to my questions yet, so I have spent my time reading up on the health care system in America.
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