<p>I am sure things are not easy. I wish you and your son the best.</p>
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<p>I thought your daughter was on this plan too?</p>
<p>My Blue Shield policy had a $6 million lifetime cap before 2010. Never had an annual cap in my entire life.</p>
<p>I have been buying individual insurance since 1992, and even then I knew enough not to purchase insurance with an annual cap.</p>
<p>Thanks, dstark. :)</p>
<p>It is not all about you or me GP. ;)</p>
<p>My wife would agree with you.</p>
<p>“GP, you said you might drive after you had two beers with dinner. You’d have a BAC around .02. That’s enough to be removed from the job if you have a sensitive transportation job. If you’re not safe to drive truck, train or plane because of BAC, you’re impaired when you drive a car, too.”</p>
<p>Not necessarily. You are not legal to fly an airplane if you have had one drop of alcohol less than eight hours before the flight. You’d probably have a blood alcohol level of 0, rendering you completely legal and safe to drive a car, but not considered safe nor legal to fly. There’s a difference between what is actually safe and unimpaired, and what is legal.</p>
<p>With all the uncertainty about health insurance, I need a beer or two with dinner. :)</p>
<p>“My wife would agree with you.” :)</p>
<p>“I’m just pointing out that both Busdriver and her employer get a substantial subsidy for health care coverage through a full tax write off, without any weighing of either the corporate or employee assets - but she seems to be arguing for asset-based means testing before a person who has to pay out of pocket for insurance can get a partial tax credit based on the relationship of their income to the amount they have had to pay.”</p>
<p>I am not a supporter of writing off health care deductions by employers, but I don’t make the law. I don’t write off any health care deductions myself.</p>
<p>I do think there is a difference between taking a tax deduction and getting a tax credit. A tax credit is far more beneficial than just reducing the amount of taxes you pay. I think medicare, medicaid, social security and health insurance subsidies should all be means tested. At least I’m consistent. At issue is that we just don’t have enough money to pay for all of this without something giving. Though I’m sure I would not be a beneficiary of this opinion.</p>
<p>That reminded me to get a nice glass of wine.</p>
<p>“With all the uncertainty about health insurance, I need a beer or two with dinner”</p>
<p>Or three or four!</p>
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From the point of view of the government (IRS), its all the same thing - it is revenue they collect, or not. </p>
<p>And from the point of view of those of us who owe more money in taxes than the total amount of our potential subsidy – there is no difference. A tax credit is something that reduces the amount of taxes that we pay. Of course it’s different if someone is in the position of being owed a refund – but the point of the ACA tax credit is that you have to spend money to receive the credit. So its not as if anyone can sit back and do nothing and then rake in free money because they manipulate their income in some way.</p>
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Yes, she is. Still don’t think I needed the maternity rider. So, if I can at least keep it for another year while ACA gets straightening out, I don’t believe the lack of maternity will make any difference whatsoever.</p>
<p>I think CF’s question is what would you do if your daughter got pregnant accidentally? I wanted maternity coverage for my daughter from the time she hit puberty. I didn’t want my daughter to be having babies, and I am fiercely pro-choice, but I wouldn’t ever want the decision of whether to have an abortion or not to be dictated by finances. (I mean, it’s not really a “choice” under those circumstances.) Also, I don’t know whether a policy that excludes maternity coverage would also exclude coverage for an unplanned and unexpected ectopic pregnancy, which as far as I know is always a medical emergency.</p>
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There are plenty of people that do not get maternity riders and still pay cash for having children. It’s about $6-10K to give brith (if c-section or not) and to me, since that’s an amount I could pay cash anyway, isn’t worth the extra rider. </p>
<p>Now, having good insurance for when your kid gets a tumor in her head? Yeah, that’s not an amount I could have just paid cash for.</p>
<p>Oh, I have some friends who had expenses a whole lot higher when they gave birth to preemies. Though I will grant you, it wasn’t for the delivery. It’s that neonatal care that gets pricey. That’s the tough part about a policy that doesn’t cover maternity-- it generally doesn’t cover the medical costs of the newborn either. Of course, under the old, pre-ACA system, just about every one of those preemies was born with a pre-existing condition.</p>
<p>I thought I’d just add, I have a special word for the result of an unplanned, unanticipated pregnancy. I call him “grandson”. I would have totally freaked out if my son had allowed his former girlfriend and now ex-wife go through the pregnancy without insurance.</p>
<p>calmom - That was my choice to make. I was happy with my insurance without the maternity rider. While I can understand it wouldn’t be the same choice you made, I weighed the risks and decided it was not worth buying for my family’s situation at that time.</p>
<p>I would not prefer to delve into this too deeply because I don’t think we will see eye to eye. So anyway, I answered the question as to why my policy was cancelled and not considered complaint.</p>
<p>That’s ok, we don’t have to see eye-to-eye.</p>
<p>But I’m thinking that part of the reason that ACA requires coverage of maternity benefits as an essential benefit in all policies is because of the societal interest in making sure that all of those tiny newborns in the NICU’s have some sort of coverage, from day #1. I’d imagine that most of them are the offspring of parents who expected to have normal, low-cost deliveries with healthy babies, perhaps even home births. See: [VM</a> – The Cost of Saving the Tiniest Lives: NICUs versus Prevention, Oct 08 … Virtual Mentor](<a href=“http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2008/10/pfor1-0810.html]VM”>http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2008/10/pfor1-0810.html) </p>
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