Ever had a little faith?
You gotta let the rail go once in a while, stop gripping it so tightly and let people help you down for once.
I've been in a swivet since my insurance rates for the next year were announced. $500 a month they were going to be! That's quite a lot, considering that I only have insurance to keep my prescriptions for thyroid meds live. I pay $45 every three months for the meds, and have been paying $380 a month for the privilege of being able to do so.
Well! My gentle, old home town Seattle health care provider was assimilated by Kaiser this last year, and among the many changes the big guys brought in was a giant raise in fees.
I was in a wax for about a month. I can't afford that! I was weighing my options. Noel steered me to the Wa State Health Plan Finder.. She looked and saw that people in my age bracket and with my income could qualify for tax credits through the ACA. However, when I went to sign up through the Finder, it told me I could not qualify.
My plan B was to drop my health care entirely, get my prescriptions filled through one of the clinics in the area (I even made an appointment at the 45th St Clinic to go and talk about the possibility of doing that.) I also found the name of an insurance broker on the Finder site and made an appointment to talk to them, and see if they had anything to suggest.
I went there this morning. Caught a bus in the freezing early morning that dropped me off on the other side of the hill, where I waited for a transfer bus; then walked from Campus Parkway to Roosevelt and found the brokerage.
I was early, so I read the front page of the Wall Street Journal while I waited (lead story: CVS Acquires AEtna, And Nobody Knows What To Think About That). The broker's representative came out and we went into her office, and she plugged my information into the Finder site, and quickly ascertained that I'd put my yearly income into the frame that asked for my monthly income. No wonder it didn't think I was qualified for help, it thought I was making $41000 a month ... corrected, the site told me I could get a credit, which would bring my monthly health care payment down to .. $195 a month.
The sun came out, and birds sang in the trees. I signed papers and she led me back into the lobby, where I discovered that their fees for the service are paid by the ACA, so charge to me was nil.
And when I walked out into the street, the sun was in fact shining, and the weather warmer, and when the bus came to take me downtown, the driver held out a box of After Eight mints for everyone who was boarding to have chocolate.
I've been in a swivet since my insurance rates for the next year were announced. $500 a month they were going to be! That's quite a lot, considering that I only have insurance to keep my prescriptions for thyroid meds live. I pay $45 every three months for the meds, and have been paying $380 a month for the privilege of being able to do so.
Well! My gentle, old home town Seattle health care provider was assimilated by Kaiser this last year, and among the many changes the big guys brought in was a giant raise in fees.
I was in a wax for about a month. I can't afford that! I was weighing my options. Noel steered me to the Wa State Health Plan Finder.. She looked and saw that people in my age bracket and with my income could qualify for tax credits through the ACA. However, when I went to sign up through the Finder, it told me I could not qualify.
My plan B was to drop my health care entirely, get my prescriptions filled through one of the clinics in the area (I even made an appointment at the 45th St Clinic to go and talk about the possibility of doing that.) I also found the name of an insurance broker on the Finder site and made an appointment to talk to them, and see if they had anything to suggest.
I went there this morning. Caught a bus in the freezing early morning that dropped me off on the other side of the hill, where I waited for a transfer bus; then walked from Campus Parkway to Roosevelt and found the brokerage.
I was early, so I read the front page of the Wall Street Journal while I waited (lead story: CVS Acquires AEtna, And Nobody Knows What To Think About That). The broker's representative came out and we went into her office, and she plugged my information into the Finder site, and quickly ascertained that I'd put my yearly income into the frame that asked for my monthly income. No wonder it didn't think I was qualified for help, it thought I was making $41000 a month ... corrected, the site told me I could get a credit, which would bring my monthly health care payment down to .. $195 a month.
The sun came out, and birds sang in the trees. I signed papers and she led me back into the lobby, where I discovered that their fees for the service are paid by the ACA, so charge to me was nil.
And when I walked out into the street, the sun was in fact shining, and the weather warmer, and when the bus came to take me downtown, the driver held out a box of After Eight mints for everyone who was boarding to have chocolate.