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April 19, 2005
My Story
I don't know anything about health insurance. Like most people, previously to being self-employed, I had always received health insurance through my employer. I rarely get sick, and never go to the doctor, so even terms like co-pay were completely foreign to me.
So, given the fact that I don't know anything, I figured I needed help. I needed someone or some organization to help me find a good deal. So, I stumbled upon NASE and thought this was great. An organization to help the self-employed. That's exactly what I was looking for. I thought these guys must know more that I do, and they have probably found the best insurance company for someone like me. So, I called signed up and told them to send the insurance salesman over, I was ready to sign up.
A few days later a woman came over and told us all about the insurance. It all sounded good to me given the fact that since I was clueless, I have nothing to compare it to. I trusted NASE, and thought in the worst case, maybe it's not the best, but how bad could it be. Sign me up.
My wife and I were planning to have children. So, since we both rarely go to the doctor, that was our only concern. We asked the sales person a minimum of 4 times wether pregnancy and prenatal care were covered and every time we got the same response. "Yes, of course, it's all covered".
Well, there's not much more to the story, you probably all ready know the ending. My wife got pregnant, we go to the doctor and they contacted MEGA and they said "Pregnancy is not covered". So now I'm stuck with paying everything. Every ultra sound, every checkup, Cesarean section, hospital stay, nurse care, genetic tests, everything. We also spent money getting pregnant. My wife ended up getting pregnant naturally, but we went through a whole course of infertility treatments which were pretty expensive too.
It might not be so bad if the insurance was cheap, but we were paying $448 a month!!!
So, in conclusion I was lied to about the coverage, and they took advantage or my ignorance about health insurance. I trusted NASE was there to help the self-employed, but it seems they are there to prey on the self-employed. If my story was an isolated incident, I would blame myself, but similar stories are all over the internet.
Some more fun facts:
1) My prescription card never worked. I'm not sure why. I called a few times and they said there was some problem in the computer, not sure, but it was never fixed.
2) When I canceled my MEGA insurance, they decided they would get one more months payment out of me before canceling it. They automatically changed my account another $448 and sent me a letter saying that my policy would a month after I had canceled. I had to spend $25 calling my bank to put a stop on that automatic payment. Real nice MEGA!!
Posted by steve at April 19, 2005 01:33 AM