A Tale of Two Insurance Plans and the Monster that ate one of them

[Robyn66]

Once upon a time there were two people who fell in love and got married. The Husband worked for a small company with an owner that valued his employees so much that he felt it was his duty to provide the best health insurance for them and that the company should pay for it 100%. Eventually, the government told him that he could not give his employees free insurance so he finally broke down and made his employees pay one penny a week.

Time went on and two little princesses came into their lives. The owner of the company even met the Mommy at the door to carry one of the newborn princesses through the plant the day she was brought in to see Daddy and be shown off.
Many years went by and the Mommy got very very sick, but fortunately due to the wonderful health insurance, and a foundation in place at work to cover any extra co-pays not covered by insurance, all the family had to worry about was the Mommy getting well. And she did.

Then one day, the owner got sick and found he had to sell the company. He looked very hard to find a company that would treat his employees the same way that he had treated them. It took a few years but he finally found a wonderful company and with tears in everyone’s eyes, he retired.

Unfortunately the new company was not as strong as the old company, and a giant monster corporation smelled blood and ate the small company, firing half of its employees, many of whom had worked there over 20 years.
The Daddy was lucky to keep his job, but the health insurance was the first thing to go, because the multi-billion dollar mining company said they could not afford it.

Now, the Daddy pays $150.00 a week for health insurance, but when one of the princesses got pneumonia, her chest ex-rays were not covered. When the Mommy goes to get a mammogram, because it’s post cancer, it is not covered. In fact it seems that even though the deductible appears fairly low, they can’t seem to reach it because the insurance simply doesn’t cover most things.
Right before the election in 2012, the Daddy got a letter from the Monster saying that they hoped the election went well because if it didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to get insurance at all by 2016.

So now, the family is looking in to the Affordable Care Act, hopefully something on the exchange can be found that is better than what they have now, so they call all live in good health ….
Happily Ever After