What happened to your health insurance premiums?

[RightSide]

Since I'm not working right now, I am on Medicare and an individual Blue Cross policy.

I was first diagnosed with kidney failure in September 2008.  2009 was my first full year on dialysis.

Well,  Blue Cross just informed me that they are raising my premium by 40% !!!  It's going to cost me an extra $2600 a year or so.  So I'll be paying some $7,500 a year to Blue Cross.  And given that they pay only 20% of my medical bills (Medicare pays 80%), that's a VERY expensive premium for such little coverage. 

Does anyone have any suggestions? 

[tyefly]

  my private insurance went up 24% last year.... I thought that was bad......  40%    they are going to run you out of there...... 

[Jie]

You have a private insurance and your dialysis is less than 30 months. So, your private insurance should be primary and medicare is secondary. If this is true, then Blue Cross pays much more than 20%.  $7500/year seems a lot of money. However, I would say that Blue Cross loses a lot of money to provide insurance for you even with $7500/year premium and even Blue Cross pays only 20%. It costs a lot of money for a dialysis patient. My medical bill is about 0.4 million US dollars a year. A 20% of it is US$80,000. Of course, when medicare is primary, the cost is a lot less, maybe a 1/3 of this. Please try to talk to the dialysis social worker to see there are any better options there.

[kellyt]

I have Humana and Medicare (for three years post transplant).  My Humana is Primary and Medicare is Secondary for 30 months, then Medicare becomes Primary.  Wow, Medicare will be Primary for a whopping six months.     Then they drop me like a hot potato.

[paris]

Here is our insurance update - In November our insurance (with my husbands employer) informed us our rates were going up by about 35%.  BUT, if we participated in their "health fair" we would then get a 20% discount on the new rates.  We had to go, get blood drawn, fill out a 5 page questioneer, be weighed and if we were smokers, we had until June to quit.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    I was furious!  They are going to send us a report on what they found.  Ha!  I finally told the stupid man that their was no where on their questioneer to indicate any major illness like cancer, kidney or liver disease.  I told him they will be calling me when they see my labs are off the chart,  without knowing I am under the care of a nephrologist.   My biggest fear is that they will use this information against those of us with major health issues.    I do like our insurance and they have been good at covering things.  This just feels very invasive.    A friend said that her husbands insurance (blue cross/blue sheild) are requiring a cheek swap to check  who is smoking.   Seriously?!  This all seems a little controlling.     The stress of always worrying about something gets to be overwhelming.   My husband didn't think there was any problem with the "health fair", etc.   I am usually the calm one and he is the "sky is falling" one.   I can't wait for my report to come and I can find out what is wrong with me!  LOL!!!!

[kitkatz]

You go get them if they try to screw you over Paris.

[glitter]

My husband had an individual BC/BS policy, and Medicare. His rate increased every single year (for 15 years, even before kidney issue), with the biggest jump coming at 50 and up. They said it was age based, and increased around his birthday.