Hiya, and thanks for the commentary.
Dave wrote:
On 21 Oct 2006 13:20:23 -0700, "Skip Gundlach"
said:

However, that represents about 1/3 of the income we anticipated living
on

Have you considered a high deductible policy plus saving for routine care?
What is today called health "insurance" is too often simply prepayment of
expenses you know you'll incur, with a sizeable profit to the "insurance"
company for handling the money. True insurance should cover the catastrophic
loss but not the routine costs.

You message brings to mind Blanche's famous line in Streetcar: "I've always
depended on the kindness of strangers."

We have, too - but that's another entire thread! - and go out of our
way to be "strangers" as well.

We're now looking into "medical savings accounts" as a tax-sheltered
(not that we have a shelter problem - but every bit helps!) solution,
next, but...

We've found - at least in the admittedly hurried and limited looking
we've done - that the premium savings doesn't nearly match the
deductible outlay, particularly as you get into the higher
deductibles. If you NEVER have a covered event, a high deductible will
save you the difference in premiums. However, I've been in the
hospital or under the knife entirely too frequently of late, after more
than 50 years of never seeing a doctor other than to qualify for life
insurance.

For the last few months that we'll have it, our automotive has had, for
the last many years, a zero-deductible comprehensive policy, and a
relatively high collision policy coverage. That's because, in the case
of the comprehensive, it doesn't allow me to control the circumstances.
Thus a tree limb falling on my car, a rock hitting the windshield,
some nut keying the side (all of which have happened to me, and the
windshield, several times) weren't something I could avoid. I can
control how I drive, or if I'm careless or stupid enough to cause
damage, own up to my responsibility and cough it up. I calculated the
premium difference in Comp, for the various deductibles, on how long it
would take me to recover the cost of a windshield (very cheap in car
repair terms) by a reduction in premiums. I couldn't make it
comfortable - even the least expensive would have taken me something
like 7 years - so went with full coverage. Before I sell it (just
before we leave), I'll have the latest windshield replacement...

Back to health care, though, pre-existing conditions are rightly
excluded in new policies, other than a group which, of course, will
evaluate the members before quoting. In our case, had we not had
coverage, in this past year, we'd have had to come up with (assuming we
were able to negotiate the same amounts paid by BCBS, not a given at
all) over 40K- but if forced to pay the billed amounts, over 200K.
(The year before that was similar, because one of my surgeries had an
infection that put me in the hospital for a week, and the follow-on
meds were over 30K while I stuck them up my arm in the PICC
unassisted.) That also assumes that we'd have gone in for the testing
which prompted my angioplasty and stents, and her biopsy which, alone,
would have represented several thousand out of pocket.

But, now, we've got ongoing medication which is an OOP of 300 a month,
not covered in any policy we found (Cobra reduces it to 100). Granted
that this will drop in any other than the US. And, should I actually
*have* a "heart event" (no symptoms, ever, before and after - the
testing I forced was male-relative/geneology driven; good thing, too,
cuz I was a heart attack waiting to happen), the OOP are likely to be
pretty high, or me dead, or both.

Not taking the meds would bring me back to the previously high-risk
status eventually, I expect. So, one of the evaluations we did was
going bare but making sure we bought the meds. However, in a cat
policy, we'd have to buy them anyway. Those costs would bring even the
cheapest cat policy close to our Cobra - and we'd not be covered to the
pre-existing conditions.

As the *only* reason we'd have insurance is those PEC, we bit the
bullet, for now. We expected to go bare - and may, in the term between
the Cobra and Medicare coverage. However, I don't know how M treats
international stuff - is it just covered in the US? Can't imagine it
would be, but I just don't know, having not even looked at that since I
can't affect it, and it's so cheap that unless it doesn't cover
anything outside, I'd buy it anyway.

Back to the particular response, it would be a good topic to spin off
(don't hijack this thread) to discuss cat policies' experience, as it's
another option I'm sure many have considered and/or done. I'm still
leaning toward going bare, but haven't enough experience with these
stents to know what I think about the advisability of that course.
Even if we keep the Cobra, it will expire in ~16 months, so we'll have
to face that question then if we've not first resolved it.

So, back to the question: Who's done it bare (or maybe with a
ridiculously cheap, ridiculously high deductible, policy equating to
bare until 25K OOP or something similar), and what have been the
experiences?

Thanks.

L8R

Skip and Lydia