Tuesday, December 01, 2009

"Relax". Yeah right.

Right before Thanksgiving we got a notice from our health provider, Kaiser Permanente. "Relax - there is nothing you need to do", was the headline with a smiling woman under the headline.

THAT got us worried...

And when reading on, we realized that they, with the message, was increasing our monthly payments with $114 (which is something like an increase of 23%) ($114 is approximately SEK 800) and doubling the deductible from $3000 to $6000 (meaning we now have to pay for all health costs up to $6000 a year before the insurance kick in...) ($6000 is approximately SEK 42000). All this with 30 days notice. And for those who had tried to get or switch insurance you know that 30 days isn't enough to research, apply, get approved for another insurance.

"Relax - there is nothing you need to do"...  Well - is there anything we CAN do? The message should have been "Relax - there is nothing you could do - we're going to skim you off your money and you have no say".

We have a private insurance - since we're both self-employed - so there really isn't that much we can do. But to agree that this country sure needs to take a serious look at health insurance - regardless of what the solution is.

As a communicator, I sure wonder about the headline message - but I guess that was the only good thing they could come up with. That you don't have to do anything to get the rate hike, they're just plainly going to take our money.

2 comments:

Anna, Fair and True said...

Önskar jag kunde säga något positivt här men det kan jag inte tyvärr... Men det borde väl finnas några andra privata alternativ ni kan byta till på sikt i alla fall? Men de kanske är lika dyra?

Not Afraid to Use It said...

Ouch. That absolutely sucks on every level. How can people think the insurance companies here do not need improvement? Gah.