My work open enrollment deadline came and went yesterday… the mantra is the same every year.. make sure you get your selections in on time…even if you aren’t making any “changes” or you won’t have health care coverage next year… after covering changes regarding health care reform in depth the month of May and in several stories since then… the need for some kind of reform was obvious based on the people I interviewed…

After talking to professors, free clinics, local doctors and health professionals, LOA, pharmacists, people who didn’t have health insurance, people who did have health insurance it is clear that the health care reform we are experiencing is far from perfect… but everyone agreed that changes needed to be made… of course there are very differing opinions about what those changes should be… but right now we all must deal with the changes that are at hand…

I have grown to think that health care coverage is a privilege… it is provided through my job and yes there are significant changes this year as far as cost and coverage… but I couldn’t possibly pay for a medical stay or significant testing out of pocket… which is the challenge so many people in our area face… and while programs like Project Access and Free Clinics across the Commonwealth try to fill those medical gaps.. there are still people who fall through the coverage that is offered.. and from what I found no matter what reform we have there will always be people who fall through the gaps…

So for the first time in a long time I really scrutinized my health coverage selections… there are no more co-pay plans now offered through our carrier for us… everything is based on percentages and deductibles… I found it was like taking a gamble on our health for next year… my husband and I are generally healthy people but he was in an awful car accident that was no fault of his own a couple of years ago… so how do you plan for a horrible accident… how do you plan for a diagnosis that could mean significant medication or hospital stay or treatments? well you just can’t… after I looked at all of our options… I made the best “educated guess” I could… and I came away with a better understanding of why some of the changes to our insurance coverage have been put into place… to encourage consumers to be better stewards of our care and medical futures… so far that has worked for me.