health insurance

[briank1visa 0]

trying to get health insurance for my wife who came here on a k-1 visa and our new daughter who was born in the states. Couldn't get insurance when she was pregnant which I understand. Now that we have are child I tried getting insurance for us and I can't believe they denied my wife because she has not resided in the united states for the past 12 months. I can't believe they can do this. I guess i am just complaining. She passed the medical requirements for the k1 visa wich is good enough for the government but not good enough for the insurance company. alright i feel better complaining about this. anyone els having problems aquiring insurance or feel like compaining about health insurance companies?

[Killer_Clown_2009 0]

Thatis really terrible. My husband was able to add me (and my son) to his blue cross based on our marriage alone!

Can you try finding another insurance company?

[briank1visa 0]

Thatis really terrible. My husband was able to add me (and my son) to his blue cross based on our marriage alone!

Can you try finding another insurance company?

I heard blue cross will take us but there rates are a little higher then the united heath care i was looking at. I just can't believe they can deny my wife. This whole imigration processes has definately changed my voting habits. What rules do insurance companys have to follow on accepting people? I know it's there money.

[Nikita2Charles 31]

There's something strange, are you trying to get insurance for your wife on your own or through your employer, If it's from work, you can only add her after you get married, all I had to do was fax a copy of the marriage certificate to HR for a change of family status. If you don't add your spouse within that 30 days window you have to wait until Open enrollment to do it. Are you in California?

Good luck !

Edited December 20, 2006 by Nikita2Charles

[Boiler 43,545]

Thatis really terrible. My husband was able to add me (and my son) to his blue cross based on our marriage alone!

Can you try finding another insurance company?

I heard blue cross will take us but there rates are a little higher then the united heath care i was looking at. I just can't believe they can deny my wife. This whole imigration processes has definately changed my voting habits. What rules do insurance companys have to follow on accepting people? I know it's there money.

So its not that you can not get Insurance, just that one Company will not offer you a quote.

There are many many other Companies out there.

I was also added to my Wife's company plan.

Edited December 20, 2006 by Boiler

[briank1visa 0]

There's something strange, are you trying to get insurance for your wife on your own or through your employer, If it's from work, you can only add her after you get married, all I had to do was fax a copy of the marriage certificate to HR for a change of family status. If you don't add your spouse within that 30 days window you have to wait until Open enrollment to do it. Are you in California?

Good luck !

No I am not trying to get insurance thru my job. My job health insurance plan would cost me $ 1400 a month. No thanks but thats a different story. My job pays very well they just don't offer very good benifits. (gov contracts) I was trying to find insurance on my own.

[briank1visa 0]

I'll find some insurance I am just complaining. You hear in the news how people coming here illegally raise the cost of health insurance for everyone. We are all doing this leagally and they are denying us insurance. I'm just frustrated with the whole proccess. I just feel her passing the goverment medical requirements should be sufficient for an insurance company.

[Aymerlu 3]

I'm having the exact same problem finding insurance for my husband too being told his needs to be in the states for 1 year in order to get insurance. Then I was told his premiums would be outrageous. The only way around this is to find a job that offers group insurance which is what I'm doing now. O totally understand how you feel.

[am1996 0]

Most medium and large employers out there use group insurance policies to offer guaranteed acceptance/no underwriting/guaranteed renewal health insurance policies (they do this to ensure that all otherwise eligible employees and their families qualify for the health benefits). That's the reason that employees and their eligible family members do not have to worry about underwriting requirements (health conditions, length of residence in the US, etc...).

By definition, when it comes to healthy people, guaranteed acceptance policies are much more expensive than policies offered to the generally healthy people who go through individual underwriting. Many companies subsidize all or a portion of the health premiums, which makes the employees' portion of the premium significantly more affordable than it would've been otherwise. Since company subsidies vary widely, however, there are plenty of situations where healthy people can obtain a better/more competitively priced health insurance policy on their own. Before you make the decision to decline your company policy, be sure to consider the following:

1) Most employers make the employees' health insurance premiums eligible for the "Cafeteria 125" treatment, which excludes the premiums from federal and state income tax calculations and can result in fairly substantial savings. By contrast, individual health plan premiums are not eligible for this treatment (you may be eligible to deduct the premiums to the extent your aggregate health care costs exceed, I believe, 7.5% of your AGI, which is a VERY HIGH threshold). People should factor the tax benefits into their calculations when they compare employer-sponsored vs. individual plan premiums.

2) Group policies offered by many employers often contain very high or no lifetime benefit maximums and guaranteed renewals. By contrast, many individual policies contain lifetime benefit maximum ceilings of $1MM (if god forbid, you are diagnosed with a serious medical condition like cancer or HIV, you will hit the benefit maximum very quickly). Further, under certain circumstances, the insurance companies providing individual policies can transfer the insureds into higher risk groups (which can cause a substantial increase in premiums) or can just cancel/non-renew their policies. If that happens, it may be very difficult to find another non-guaranteed acceptance policy.

Of course, there are many circumstances where declining the employer sponsored health insurance policy and purchasing one individually makes perfect sense. Just be very careful about understanding all the conditions, restrictions and caveats involved in that decision.

Edited December 20, 2006 by am1996

[Savanphil 3]

Wow, that sucks. I was able to add my husband to my Blue cross "Personal Choice" with no problems. He came on a K-3 and doesn't even have a Soc# yet. My company was very helpful and supportive. And about a week and a half his medica and dental cards came in the mail.

[am1996 0]

I heard blue cross will take us but there rates are a little higher then the united heath care i was looking at.

When it comes to individual insurance policies of the non-employer sponsored variety, eligibility rules vary widely not just state to state and company to company but also among different health plans offered by the same insuror. As such, if I were you, I would focus a lot less on the insurance company and a lot more on the type of health plan you are considering. In some cases, the fact that United Healthcare has refused to qualify your wife for one health plan does not mean that it won't qualify you for a different one. You may want to consider consulting an insurance broker to simplify and streamline the shopping and qualifying process.

[motu 5]

Brian:

There are other options but you need to weigh them to see if they work for you or not. In our case, I was readily able to add my wife to my insurance but the cost for both of us per month was $550+ (despite me getting a subsidy for my portion - none for her.) I went with that in the beginning but realized that we still had to pay a lot for everything - mostly checkups and a few prescriptions. So, I looked at online insurance plans and chose one that is a HD HC plan (High deductible and High co-pay) - what that does is allows me to open a HSA (Health Savings Account.) So I am paying $232 for both of our HD HC plan and putting the rest of the money ($318) in the HSA - the HSA allows me to write checks on it for all the expenses I had to previously pay out of pocket (yes you need to see the rules - I can add more than the 318 and I am doing it.) In addition it allows me to use that money for dental and vision expenses also - so it is a bonus of sorts. The best part is that you do not have to spend all the money in one year like MSA used to be - you carry it forward (to age 65) and then you can withdraw it (and pay the taxes at that point.)

It won't work for everyone but works for us. And there's added savings for us when we reach 65. Look at it and see if it can be made to work for you or not. The bad part is that you do have to spend a lot of money but in this case I am using more than 50% of it on our own expenses (medical/dental/vision) and wil be able to cash the balance later on. Good Luck

Edited December 20, 2006 by motu

[Lansbury 19]

trying to get health insurance for my wife who came here on a k-1 visa and our new daughter who was born in the states. Couldn't get insurance when she was pregnant which I understand. Now that we have are child I tried getting insurance for us and I can't believe they denied my wife because she has not resided in the united states for the past 12 months. I can't believe they can do this. I guess i am just complaining. She passed the medical requirements for the k1 visa wich is good enough for the government but not good enough for the insurance company. alright i feel better complaining about this. anyone else having problems aquiring insurance or feel like compaining about health insurance companies?

Blue Cross accepted my application while I was still living in the UK. It was set up to start the day I arrived in the USA.

This was an application for myself alone as my wife, the US citizen, has diabetes and had to go into the Oregon medical pool in order to get her preexisting condition covered for the first 6 months.

[Heartland 0]

Some hospitals have programs for women without insurance. call local hospitals and speak to the social workers there and see what is avail.

Goodluck

Wendy http://www.freewebs.com/mrs_odeh/ *Live *Laugh *learn