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Friday, February 07, 2020

Health Insurance Bullshit Squared



When I ranted about this recently I didn't know we'd already been bit.

For 2019, Sid had a higher-priced, silver level health insurance with a "low" $2,500 deductible, which is supposed to also cover a newborn baby for 30 days. So imagine our surprise when we see ~$4,000 in birth related costs being applied to her $2,500 deductible (and, consequently, not being paid by insurance).

If you read my prior rant you may already have guessed what happened.

The moment our daughter was born, her insurance called it a "family plan" and doubled her deductible. So they paid nothing. (Still the wording in the 2019 policy docs is ambiguous at best as to whether the individual deductible no longer applies in family plans.)

Single mothers are the most likely to get this particular surprise.

In our case we had individual plans for historical reasons. They told us we had to put her on Sid's plan for her to be covered at all. In fact, we could have put her on mine instead, and saved a few thousand dollars. But of course they didn't tell us that.



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Simon Funk / simonfunk@gmail.com