Saving Money Made Easy

Thank goodness for health insurance. How else could I afford the prescription drugs and health care that I need to survive and thrive?

Here are a couple of real life examples:

I recently had eye surgery. After the surgery, the surgeon gave me a prescription for anti-biotic eye drops that I would need to use as a preventive measure for the first week after the surgery. When I went to have this prescription filled, I was informed that my co-pay would be $60.00 for this one prescription. As I tell everyone here, I always ask the actual retail price for all of my prescriptions, as I know that I will pay for it sooner or later (please read my post on Star Trek Economics if you haven’t done so already). Anyway, I was informed that if I did not have a prescription plan, these eye drops would set me back a whopping $67.00!

A few weeks before that, I had another prescription filled. This prescription had a co=pay of only $35.00. When I inquired what it would have cost me if I didn’t have insurance, I was told that it would have set me back $37.00.

Prescription drugs are not the only area where your expensive insurance saves you serious moolah. A doctor client recently told me that my health insurance carrier would allow me to treat at his office, and that my per visit co-pay would be $50.00. The cost per visit if I didn’t have insurance and had to pay cash? $50.00.

Earlier this year, like most small businesses, my health insurance premiums jumped a whopping 30%. However, when I see how I saved $9.00 so far this month, that 30% increase is somewhat easier to bear. NOT!

The moral of the story is simple. Tell EVERYONE to always ask what your health care products and services actually cost – not just what the co-pay is. Find out what your carrier actually pays for them, and what they would cost you if you didn’t have insurance. For your prescription drugs, find out what they would cost you in Canada (this information is just a quick Google search away). My eye drops, by the way, would have run me just $24.00 from a pharmacy in the Great White North.

Getting enough people aware of how we are getting reamed by the health care carriers and the pharmaceutical companies is going to be the first step in turning our health care system around. Hopefully, one day soon, we can re-enact this great scene from American Cinema.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08

Enjoy!


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