Share Your Story: What do preventive health services with no co-pays or deductibles mean to you?
Has cost ever kept you or a family member from getting preventive care? Has it forced you to make tough choices, like delaying a health screening despite family history or putting off paying a bill so you can afford to see a doctor? We also would like to hear about any success stories! Have you received a benefit with no co-pay? Whatever it is, we want to hear from you!
Thanks to the health care law, new insurance plans are required to cover certain women's preventive health services with no co-payments or deductibles at the start of their next plan year. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 47 million women will benefit from these new services. That's huge!
Tell us — what do preventive health services with no co-pays or deductibles mean to you?
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Your Stories
Janet Kitsmiller
Orlando, FL, Teacher
Preventative health services with no copays or deductibles means that there will be big bucks to pay if something is wrong with you. I have group health insurance. Over the last few years, my decuctibe has risen to $3,000 and my out of pocket to $6,0000. Because of this, I can no longer get the epidurals I used to recieve for the chronic pain I suffer as a result of a back injury. You may not have to pay for a checkup, but if there is anything wrong with you, forget getting help. You won't be able to afford it. This is what Obamacare has done for me. Any laws written by the insurance companies had their bottom line in mind, not protecting my health or income.
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Nicole
Peekskill, NY,
I now have health insurance but not long ago I did not. I am not a frivolous young person who did not care about my health. I worked for a foreign government and my employer was not able to provide health insurance for me. I had a modest salary and it took me quite some time to save enough to be able to afford private insurance. When I did finally purchase it I went out the first day and had a routine obgyn exam. In the course of this exam it was discovered that I needed surgery. Because this happened at the onset of the policy, my new insurance company set about trying to prove that I was not covered based on a preexisting condition clause. As an individual there was no insurance available to me with no preexisting condition clause. The company sent me a series of forms to fill out requiring that I provide the name, address and phone number of every doctor, pharmacy, and health care facility I had been to in the last five years or my insurance would not cover the required procedure. This included every place I'd ever bought an aspirin, some Dramamine for a plane trip, for a headache I got in China... I complied! They requested it all again, on their forms, written by hand. I did it again. They did this ten times. After I complied every time, they told me that my policy was invalid because on one page of the many forms I filled out I had mistakenly transposed the month and day. The correspondence I received gave me the option to appeal BUT it have to be post dated by the end of the day I received the letter on! I could fax it but they wouldn't honor anything from a public fax as that would violate privacy policies. I fought with them for a year in this way, whilewaitingFTP have a growth removed from my ovary that was many times the size of my ovary. They eventually relented. Since that time I have Had to fight insurance companies again and again for basic services: while I was in labor the hospital called in a routine exam by a specialist without giving me achoice and he was out of network, though my hospital and doctor were in it. That sort of thing. In my opinion, health insurance reform could not be far reaching enough.
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Paul
Yakima, WA, N/A
In 2004 I was feeling sick, low grade fever, run down. I made an appointment to see my Dr. But in the middle of the night before my Appt. I felt nauseous, as I was throwing up mostly bile (my stomach was empty) I noticed it was pink then it got darker red and that's the last thing I recall untill my dad was leaning over my slapping my face Bridget me conscious, after regaining consciousness all heck Brock loose! I sat up on the toilet I began projectile vomiting dark red blood and expelling it out the other end as well. My poor mother looked on in horror untill I was able to say call 911 between bursts. Sorry for the vivid description but if I had what I do now thank to a new addition to my Medicade thanks to Obama Care where it's mandatory to have a yearly psysical through your PCP (preferred care provider) I believe they would have detected the massive bleeding ulcer growing inside me or even the large cancerous tumour in my lower stomach with was only discovered because the oral treatments to heal the ulcer were not working so they cut me open to repair it with a lazer. It cost the state $25.000 to fly me via a jet & helicopter to Seattles U.W. Hospitol were I was for close to a month and barley lived due to the ulcer being extremely difficult to coterize. The new yearly physical is such a no brainier it's amazing it took this long to make it a regulars part of basic health care! I asked one of the very helpful people available for the new coverage if this was ment to cut down on emergency room visits and they said "that's exactly what we are trying to aleveate" so im sure my story isn't unique, but hopefully these storiels will decrease as the program gets integrated into basic health care (at least for those states that excepted the funding) As yet another example, wile undergoing chemo therapy my inept Dr. never bothered to inform me that I should be taking preventative measures to protect my teeth (chemo shuts down the saliva glads leaving the teeth unprotected to bacteria) the only reasoning I can think of as to why he didn't mention this was because he knew there were no dentists that accepted Medicaid, but I could have paided out of pocket for the inexpensive protection! As a result I started loosing my teeth about two years after the chemo and had to have all my teeth removed or pay $25 to $75 thousand to repair/rebuild my original teeth. My 1st pair of dentures were free through medicaid until all coverage was cut during a round of state budget cuts, they were the cheapest versions made and I recently paided $1.200 for new light weight natural looking dentures after getting multiple gum infections due to the cheap pairs ill fitting abrasives. so that's my story and I still feel we have a long way to go so that EVERY citizen has access to good basic & specialty health care !
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Cheryl Evans
Fulton, Mississippi,
I know that some people go overboard when it comes to seeing the doctor. I also know that some doctors take great advantage of scheduling unnecessary doctor visits. That being said, I wish to explain my views on the ability to visit them period. I hold ill views of the medical profession because of their lack of compassion when it comes to those who cannot afford them. My mother was forced into bringing 4 (would have been 7, 3 miscarriages) children home to impoverished Mississippi in the 60's . We could never get well checks, dental visits unless there was pain (my teeth definitely needed care, still do). We actually are more than likely better off from not going in some ways. I say that because of the views on antibiotics, the side effects of most meds and the life threatening diseases they cause (even though they don't tell us about it). For my own family, it would have prevented grief of another kind had their been ways and means to help unravel mental illness/drug abuse in my oldest son. There are still unanswered questions for him, but he is an adult now. He's an adult with no health insurance and no faith in those he has visited. Patterns repeat themselves, and I became a deserted mother of two. Medicaid is a JOKE. My second son had extra teeth, and as I worked, my mom was taking him to a remote town to get help. We eventually gave up and suffered through payments to a dentist who at least allowed us to make payments instead of lump sum. I say that for those who have impaired health or those who have impaired their OWN health, ease in getting checkups is a great thing. Perhaps there should be limits of another kind. I don't want to trade one illness for another just to keep a doctor's pocket book fat. We have very little to fatten them with. My mother had breast cancer. I went with her to get a mammogram in 2002? I think. I had to, as a result get a biopsy over 7 lil "pencil point" spots on my right breast. I was stabbed, you could say. I hurt for ages afterward because I have such small breasts. Then we heard that it could be that mammograms cause breast cancer. (This was from a nurse) Will I be getting them in the future? Don't want to. There's another type that's kinder, but it costs, and the ones who conducted the first biopsy moved to that facility, so... How are we supposed to feel? It's bad for those employed, unemployed. I see nothing but a big business at our expense.
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Dorothea Murray
, Florida,
I grew up in a household with no medical insurance. My father did not have enough money to pay the premiums of his own plus mine and my two sisters. Therefore whenever any of us got sick or felt something bothering us we could not simply go to the doctor. Our only option was to go to the emergency room and pay upwards of a $1000 for each visit and since my father made barely any money it had to be life or death for him to be willing to pay this. Therefore we grew to ignore when things were wrong with us and just hoped theyd go away. This is a terrifying and terrible way to live and I know from experience that having access to a doctor without having to pay through the roof is very important for your health. It is extremely detrimental to ignore when things are wrong with you because of the dangers of them becoming worse and it is not fair that just because you cant afford a doctor visit that something totally avoidable is now potentially fatal.
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Rita
, CA,
It means, to me, that having kids will be a choice. No woman will be forced into an unintentional pregnancy because she won't have access to effective hormonal contreceptives. No woman will live Michelle Duggar's lifestyle without wanting to.
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sharon salituro
kenosha, Wisconsin, receptionist
I am 59 years old. Lost my job 3 years ago because the company moved all jobs to PA. Since than I have worked seasonal jobs and right now I am working part time as a receptionist. Since I have had cancer twice in my life, I do have to go see the doctor at least once a year for check ups. Without these services and others, I along with several thousands of people will not be able to get the medial attetion that they need. I am not one of those people who go to the doctor for every little thing. I only go when I have my check ups and when I need my pap test. We need this health insurance to not be over turned. I watch my sister suffer though cancer after her battle she passed away last April. One of the biggest items that were weighting on her mind was the cost of her hospital and other medical bills. She did not want to leave these bills for her family. She did have a good job until her cancer kept coming back and the bills started to pile up. I can't even thing of Romney getting into office. He has stated that he would get rid of planned parenthood. I guess with all his money, his wife doesn't have to worry about being able to get her pap test or a mammagram. This is a great organization that helps women get the medical attention that they need and not have to worry that they would have to choose between eating and paying medical bills.
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Ellen Rose Robinosn
Albuquerque, New Mexico, retired
In November of 1990, two of us, a friend who was also an activist in the peace movement and I, were diagnosed with colon cancer. I had health insurance through my husband's job as a professor. My friend had none. Because I was diagnosed early, the doctor took out the internal malignent polyp, and then removed 4 inches of colon, plus some other items that it would have matasticized to cancer. As a result, I was cured in a matter of a month, and didn't have to have radiation or chemotherapy. I was advised to have colonoscopies every year for 5 years, and then went down to every 3 years. Blessed relief!My friend did not have insurance; she used most of her money to pay for her children's needs. She was diagnosed, finally, at the same time I was, but it was already months too late. She died in January of 1991, about the time I was cured without consequences.Insurance care really matters to me, and I have been actively pushing for it ever since!
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LAURA ANN K BERNSTEIN
Hartsdale, New York, Certified Peer Advocate Certified Peer Facilitator for People With Disabilities like me
I am a 49 year old woman with disabilities . I was born with brain damage and have 3 college degrees and 2 certification.In the 30 years that I acheived all that I have had 3 benign brain tumors .One of which is enlarged and probably ready to treat. The past treatments were Neuro Surgery in 1991 and radiation 5 days a week for a whole month including on my Birthday. If I did not have Medicare under my dad as well as his HMO I would never be able to see the specialists I need based on just Medicaid. I also am a survior of PT SD . I am a very active Volunteer for President Obama Re Election Campaign. If people like me with disabilities or seniors want to definitely get decent health care we need OBAMA CARE. Laura Ann K Bernstein
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Yeshiembet
Oakland, CA, disablity
I am a senior citizen who is fortunate enough to have Medical. In 1999 I was confronted with multiple health hazard, and had I not entitled to Medical it would have been very tough. Still, I am suffering with extremely dry mouth and dry eyes (Sjogren's syndrome) and medication not covered by Medical; which I have to cover it out of my income. I can imagine how devasting experience it would be for those who have no health coverage at all.I think since health is wealth for every one, I strongly support health education and to boost the awarness of the society and how to keep day to day health situation in order to remain healthy; also to inform to eat the right food in order to be away from obesity.
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