Recently, my husband and I finally got approved for health insurance. Surprisingly, we were able to find a policy that we actually could afford. This week, I learned that a free health clinic that is located in the town that we live in is about to open up. This made us both wonder. Do we really need health insurance?
So far, the company that we purchased health insurance from has sent us information that describes what our dental insurance covers, (and all of the things that it is not going to cover). We have yet to get any specific information that tells us what our health insurance actually covers. Obviously, I am very anxious to know this extremely important information.
I have taken a close look at the dental insurance. It turns out that my dentist isn’t a “Participating Dentist”. This means that if I want to continue seeing my dentist I can expect that my insurance company will not cover 100% of the treatments and procedures that it would have covered if my dentist was part of their “Participating” group.
I find this to be really frustrating, because it means that if I see my dentist I will be paying more out of my own pocket than I expected to have to pay. I would still have to pay the entire amount of the monthly premium, though. The entire purpose for going through the trouble and financial expense of getting health insurance was to make my medical costs go down, not up!
For the most part, though, we don’t really have much of a choice. Either pay the premiums, (and get stuck paying for more of the cost of treatment than I was lead to believe I would have to pay), or go without health insurance. We spent the last two years without health insurance, in constant fear that the next time one of us had a serious illness or injury that it would result in filing for bankruptcy and losing our home. It seemed like the only way to protect ourselves from that fate was to buy health insurance.
Since then, things have changed a bit. A free clinic is about to open up in the town that we live in. It is called the Noor Free Clinic, and it has been given $75,000 of grant money to help it open.
There will be 500 volunteers working in the clinic. The volunteers are doctors, nurses, ophthalmologists, nutritionists, therapists and others. The clinic will open on Thursday, October 13, 2011. It will be open to see patients from 1:00 in the afternoon through 5:00 in the evening on Fridays and Saturdays. The clinic is designed to provide medical care to the people who live in my county that do not have health insurance coverage.
My husband and I can afford the health insurance we have purchased, but just barely. We don’t make very much money, and I am still qualified to receive a small amount of unemployment benefits. Could we realistically dump our health insurance and use the free clinic instead? It seems like something that we should consider, especially if it turns out that our health insurance doesn’t cover what it needs to cover in the first place.
Image by Rich Alossi on Flickr