Affordable Health Care is Not Affordable in Kentucky

I have been in the workplace for over 1/4 of a century, having obtained my first job during the early 1980s. I was once "secure" in the knowledge I could take any member of my family for a visit to our family doctor, without worry of being able to afford it. This is now not the case.
I have personally experienced the decline of my family's health care coverage, especially during the last decade. I work for a fortune 500 hundred company; which initially, offered some the best health benefits in the United States. Since the early 2000s, the cost of my family's benefits has increased each year to the point where I can almost no longer afford to even carry it. I am required to pay almost $100 a week to insure my family. We no longer have an affordable co pay, but am required to fulfill a percentage of the total of each and every visit. For those of us living on a budget, this is almost impossible. Our family can no longer run to the Dr. for a sore throat, a rash or even a mild fever. Our visits now must be only, "emergency in nature." When I read all the "benefits" listed on this government website (check the link below) I realize that by not allowing families to pay an affordable low co pay, they are putting a stranglehold on health care.


http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/statehealthreform/kentucky.html


I do believe some of the benefits listed on the government website are good, for example, the ability to keep an older child insured until the age of 26 was a "much needed" benefit for families. However, there needs to be additional thought given to the fact that having a low co pay allows families to have access to a doctor, without worry of not being able to pay a large fee, after a large deductible is met. I currently pay $4,000 a year for family health insurance but we do not receive any benefits until I pay an additional $500 deductible each year.

Families need their co pays returned. Most aspects of Kentucky's health care reform only works for the uninsured, not the insured.

M Smith

Flower Garden

Purple

Pink Blooms

Spring Beauty

Tulips - A springtime treat in Kentucky

Pale Pink

Pink is any of the colors between reddish blue (purple) to red, of medium to high brightness and of low to moderate saturation. Commonly used for Valentine's Day and Easter, pink is sometimes referred to as "the color of love." The use of the word for the color known today as pink was first recorded in the late 17th century.

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Man Made Ingenuity - Fort Knox, Kentucky

Footer of an Ancient Bridge
Fort Knox, Kentucky

 The first bridges were made by nature itself — as simple as a log fallen across a stream or stones in the river. The first bridges made by humans were probably spans of cut wooden logs or planks and eventually stones, using a simple support and crossbeam arrangement. Some early Americans used trees or bamboo poles to cross small caverns or wells to get from one place to another. A common form of lashing sticks, logs, and deciduous branches together involved the use of long reeds or other harvested fibers woven together to form a connective rope capable of binding and holding together the materials used in early bridges.

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Image by Mary C. Smith