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Bitter pill: The cost of health care in the U.S.
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How Medical Bills Has 40% of our Income
We just filed our 2012 income tax return. For the first time, after loosing our health insurance from our company in 2011, we were able to declare our healthcare costs against our income. What shocked me was that after adding up our monthy premiums for a family of 5 and our out of pocket costs and our pharmacy we paid over $38,000 in medical costs! What's more crazy is our combined income is $95,000 and our mortgage is $24,000. a year. There isn't much left over when you have 2 kids in college and one on the way. We were unable to buy health insurance on the open market because of my husband's medical problems, so we went on the only thing available to us and that was the State of Wisconsin's HIRSP. Even though the premiums are lower than what we were paying through our company in 2011, the out of pocket costs are $2500. deductible per per person in our family totals a possible $15,000. deductible if all 5 of us need medical care. Thankfully, my husband is at the moment the only one who has serious medical issues, however, my son, has bipolar disorder and the costs now for his treatment are becoming too much for our family to bare and still have our kids in college. We've had to borrow from relatives, take line of credit, borrow from our life insurance, empty our retirement accounts just to survive. Yes, the economy also hit us hard. We took a huge hit in our business and have gone into large debt and may end up in business bankruptcy, and selling our home. So we have a double whammy.. Bad economy, and healthcare costs that are killing our relatively simple way of life. And just so everyone knows, we broken down old cars, a 20 year old house in need of major repairs, and we don't spend a dime on eating out, on movies, on vacations, on anything but food, healthcare and home. So basically, we went from a comfortable happy middle class family up to 2008, to a broken, barely hanging on family in 2012. It has been hell. Thanks Health Insurance Companies for making huge profits on the backs of those of us who can't afford to pay!
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