1/7/09: Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

[davidlevine]

Word count: 3727 | Since last entry: 559

The story keeps chugging along (the streak now stands at seven days). It's still awfully talky and I am certain the first draft will be far too long for the story's weight, but I can already see places to trim it. I also begin to see a possible ending, though not how to get there.

Kate thought the new hot water heater was set a bit too high, and I agreed, so I went to turn it down. The temperature control knob is labeled as follows: a dot, LOW, another dot, another dot, a triangle, A, B, C, VERY HOT. I turned it down from B to A.

We're looking into health insurance options. I had resisted the idea of a Health Savings Account, but after our insurance broker explained how it works it might actually be simpler (no claims to process... you just pay all your medical bills with the HSA debit card) and, as long as we stay generally healthy, cheaper. Has anyone reading this used an HSA? Any opinions on US Health Group as an insurer? The other option is a conventional plan with ODS. Any opinions on them?

Comments

[redbird]

I'm nervous about the "as long as we stay generally healthy" clause, given that I think the hospital and doctors billed my insurer on the order of $30,000 for less than a week of care last year that I had had no inkling I might need until shortly before I got a friend to drive me to the ER. (Not in the "I thought the simple meds were handling this" sense, in the "no idea I had any problem with that organ" sense.)

[davidlevine]

The HSA-based plan includes a high-deductible medical plan as well as the actual Health Savings Account. The point of the plan is that you pay for ordinary expenses (doctor visits, prescriptions, etc.) using dollars from the HSA, which is tax-deductible like an IRA, and the high-deductible plan pays for unexpected major expenses. Both the HSA-based and the conventional plans have an out-of-pocket max of about $5000, so they are pretty much the same as far as covering medical catastrophes.

The difference is that in the conventional plan you pay more every month in premiums but when you go to the doctor you pay only a $20 co-pay, while with the HSA you pay less in premiums but you pay 100% of each doctor bill (using tax-deductible dollars, which nets you an effective discount of around 30%, plus you may get a discount from the doctor for paying cash). So the "as long as we stay generally healthy" clause refers to number of doctor visits rather than possible medical catastrophes.