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Fear is waking up endlessly in a bad dream, thinking of our family
I just got back from the Health Connector. Our insurance had sent us new cards this week, plus an introductory welcome packet, which somewhat surprised us since we had not actually changed our insurance since the beginning of the year when we did not change it so much as accept the fact that our previous insurance had rolled over into a new company and now all the letterheads were different but at least we could keep seeing our doctors. I spent considerable time on the phone yesterday trying to determine what had happened, in the course of which it seemed to come out that our last year's income had been drastically overvalued, the good news being that we would be eligible for state subsidy, the bad news being that we might lose our current doctors, and either way I should bring in all our financial documentation again and get the matter straightened out. I brought in our financial documentation this afternoon. I waited a long time to speak to someone. (I don't blame anyone at the office; they were appallingly understaffed.) And walked out shell-shocked because the person to whom I finally spoke told me that actually our income had been drastically undervalued and our insurance now just costs a lot more. Premiums. Co-pays. Medications. Everything. When already we cannot afford what we have been determined capable of paying. When we have to shortchange bills in order to make sure that we can see doctors. When our rent is more than I can be confident of making from month to month even without the additional expenses of gas and electricity and internet and groceries and cats and God forbid we go out to dinner some night or otherwise pretend to enjoy our lives. I can't be without doctors; I won't be functional enough to work. The metrics of the Health Connector are a black box to me. I don't know what triggered our financial reassessment; I don't even understand how our costs have risen when our income since December has not. I understand that we live in the poisoned atmosphere of a system designed to reward the already rich and drive the poor into further poverty, but I do not like to be reminded so harshly that the state really would prefer me to drop dead and stop inconveniently demanding that it treat me with even a charade of decency. And I am being reminded all too often now. And we live in Massachusetts, blue-hearted liberal bastion etc. World-class city Boston. We have it good.
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If you were in New York, I would be offering to go back there with you as your advocate and hammer on them until some explanation came out that made any sense whatsoever. Do you know anyone who might be able to do that with you? It's not that you're not capable; it's that someone who is one step removed from the pain and demoralization of going through this can be louder and think faster and push harder. HCFA MA might be able to help open that black box for you. Or someone in the office of your state senator—helping constituents is their entire job.
I know this means more phone calls and more time on this and that's awful and I wish it could all just be easy.
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This sounds so unprovoked and unexpected, even by the standards of your country's healthcare system, that I wonder whether there is some source of advice / advocacy that can establish independently that the calculations really are correct...
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Hugs, support.
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Thank you.
*hugs*