Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Luck
Frequently I have the most amazing, perverse luck, which I told Deb now applies to her too. It manifests itself in strange ways, with health insurance being a prime example.
I have a cheesy policy through one of those “groups” that supplies “affordable” insurance for the self-employed. It’s managed by PHCS and pays almost enough to be worth having. Sometimes. With a deductible and a 20% portion I have to cover. On most things. Which are seemingly random and unpredictable.
When we tried to get Deb onto the plan, which was a “can’t be turned down” no-brainer and would have cost a mere $168 per month on top of my $288 $309, the company jerked us around and found the one possible excuse they could invent for refusing to add her.
Bad luck, right? Nope.
The woman, Angie, who sells the cheesy “affordable” plan, recommended, at no benefit to her, that we not even try to talk sense into my insurer, and instead go with Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s Direct HMO for Deb. It would have been like $700 for the two of us, but for her alone is was a mere $275 a month. No deductible. Minor co-pay on some things. Maternity 100% covered, period, no matter what happens. A nice, stress-free plan you barely have to think about, long as you can afford it.
Here we are at week 17, with the Little Alien bouncing gleefully off those comfy uterine walls (we got to hear a kick as well as heartbeat last night, and learn that, yes, those are kicks she’s been feeling), when we learn we are “high risk.”
This really means they put the pregnancy under a CYA microscope just in case a tendency toward hypertension might lead to problems. Deb is not so sanguine about it, but I am more excited about the huge volume of ultrasound documentation we will have than I am worried about the little squirt. Of course, I am not the one whose body has been hijacked mercilessly. But I figure if I lived through what I had to handle in the womb and shortly after, so can my kid. But I digress.
There will be appointments for primary care, the primary care nurse, the rotating set of four midwives, the OB, the neonatologist (or whatever it’s called), and lots of “Cadillac of ultrasounds” to examine baby’s organs and watch baby’s progress, what sounds like it’ll average once a week. All covered. My luck got us on superlative insurance rather than crappy insurance, which has worked out better than I’d have imagined.