Is that because you moved to a different state?
Actually I have been in your shoes pal, I have a wife that's been chronically ill for years due to no fault of her own and have never once asked anybody else to pay the premiums on her health insurance. I'm defending the RIGHTS and PROPERTY of me and my fellow citizens from those that want to take them by force, that doesn't mean I believe the system cannot be improved, it does however mean that I do not accept that the way to improve it is to engage in further legalized theft from my me and my fellow citizens, the amount of legalized plunder that we already put up with is more than enough.
Because I moved to a different state, they treat me as a new applicant. Therefore, they can make the costs so high, it is basically unaffordable.
Tell me something; how much do you pay for your wife's insurance and healthcare per year? I was paying $6000 per year between premiums and out of pocket to cover deductibles. That was just for myself, not including my kids coverage. Now, it will cost me around $16,000 per year. Going without insurance, it will cost me around $4000 per year for the care I need. Of course, I would no longer have the insurance covering me in case my condition becomes critical. It likely will not, so I'll go without. However, if I do all of a sudden need a new liver, I'll be left to die, and my kids will lose the only surviving parent they have.
The dumb thing is that once my business is up and running, then I can get insurance through a small business plan, but I'll have to cover another employee. Then the cost will drop dramatically. But being self-employed with no other employees leaves myself and many others out of the loop.
What bothers me is that these companies only care about their bottom line. If it wasn't for other existing laws such as Hipaa, they would deny even more. To give you a better idea of how these companies operate, when I applied for a new policy in Ohio for my kids, I was told their rates would be around $130 per month. My kids are completely healthy with no health issues. After learning of my condition, they upped the rate on my kids to over $200 per month for each of them. I got basically the same policy for my kids through Aetna for $89 per month, because Aetna was not aware of my condition. So Anthem used my condition against my kids even though they have no medical condition themselves. And you think these insurance people are all on the up and up? LOL. There's good reason we need government intervention in their activities, because they will scam anyone they can given the opportunity.