Kahn said looking back, she should have secured private health insurance as soon as she was laid off.
“I should have done COBRA, even though it was very expensive,” Kahn said. “But yeah, hindsight is 20/20.”
The near-$21,000 burden will probably lead to fewer vacations and a delay in having central air conditioning installed at her place, Kahn said.
She said she hopes others can learn from her misstep.
“It was my fault. I took the risk of not doing COBRA and that’s forever on me,” she said. "But if one person gets covered because they saw this story, then I would be happy about that.
Our system is fucked, that is for 100% sure. There should be no way that someone goes into medical debt because they were laid off, and we should fight to have a better system.
However, viewing the problem at the societal level and the individual level are different things. Societally we need to push for health care for all. Individually though - get COBRA, get on a spouse’s plan, whatever you need to do. Don’t risk it.
Paying literally hundreds of dollars per month as soon as I no longer have income isn’t a reasonable expectation either.
If a freak accident like this happens while I don’t have a job, I’ll just go bankrupt and likely become homeless, then die. I’m counting on that not happening.
Yea people say get COBRA, but how are you supposed to pay for that AND rent/food/utilities? On top of that, you also need to apply and fill out all the paperwork and shit while dealing with actually finding a new job at the same time.
The problem is that COBRA is often unimaginably expensive, and since it’s something you’re faced with while out of work, it’s an impossible option for regular people. The better choice is to get private insurance as soon as you can, but coverage is usually tied to the start of calendar months, meaning you could be uncovered for a time if you don’t take COBRA. To make it even more wonderful, you often lose access to your health care immediately when you lose your job, so COBRA is only helpful retroactively after the fact in the event of a major emergency.
Health care in the US is barbaric.
Oh I agree the system is fucked and cobra is equally bad. Being forced into this system though I would urge people to have enough in savings so that if they are dropped tomorrow from insurance they can at least rest easy knowing they have health care. Individually be ready for that rainy day. Societally yes let’s rip down our healthcare system
The times when I was eligible for COBRA it was prohibitively expensive. I don’t know who it’s helping but definitely not worth it when it’s more than half your rent.
DO NOT GET COBRA! That is NOT the fucking lesson! Look, just use healthcare.gov. it’s not perfect, but God damn it will get 90% of people affordable healthcare.
Thanks for reminding me of this. My COBRA coverage was asking $758 a month. I found a 0 deductible plan on healthcare.gov for $370. If I don’t get a job by the end of this month, I’ll sign up for that.
Glad to help! It really is a lifesaver if you ever lose your insurance, I wish more people knew to use it.
I got laid off and looked into the COBRA offering. Sorry, but I’m not paying $758 a MONTH for coverage. NOPE.
How is this mildly infuriating
in civilized, developed countries, it doesn’t cost a kings ransom to receive necessary medical care.
Ain’t nothing mild about how infuriating 21,000 of medical bills for this is.
Crazy situation. I’d like to let her father know that those sunglasses don’t fit his face very well.
The ol’ bat in the mouth trick gets me every time.
Cave, I go.
What a deal on the treatment! /s
How is this c/mildlyinfuriating? Ain’t this supposed to be c/nottheonion or something?
Medical bills
Was it piloted by Ozzy’s ghost?
Bat: “Fuck you in particular, i’m gonna send you to the hostpital”
https://www.fcgov.com/naturalareas/pdf/batarticle.pdf
Myth: Bats get tangled up in people’s hair.
Fact: Bats navigate and catch tiny insects using echolocation. This system is extremely refined and more sophisticated than radar. Bats can detect single strands of human hair and can easily avoid your hair.
And then there was Bugsy, who was kind of an idiot.
Didn’t scientists set up a high speed camera to see the amazing echolocation avoidance tactics of bats in action and actually ended up filming tons of collisions? I remember seeing that in some documentary.
Well, if so, I want to see a bloopers film with bats colliding in slow motion.
squeak squeak squeak WHACK SQUEAK SQUEAK
EDIT:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bats-crash-into-each-other-all-the-time-high-speed-cameras-reveal/
Bats Crash Into Each Other All the Time, High-Speed Cameras Reveal
The sight of bats bursting forth from caves at dusk is majestic enough to dazzle any spectator, scientist, or Gotham City billionaire orphan vigilante. Comprised of hundreds of thousands of mammalian aeronauts, these massive clouds of biomass seem to move as one organism, demonstrating the extraordinary coordination of individual bats.
Or, so it would appear to the untrained eye. High-speed video cameras, however, reveal that bats are a lot more accident-prone than they look at first glance. A new featurette from the California Academy of Sciences follows bat biologists Nickolay Hristov and Louise Allen into the field near Hill Country in central Texas, to document the twilight flights of Brazilian free-tailed bats.
YouTube video containing said slow motion collisions
“We expected that they fly around each other and they never have physical contact,” Hristov said. “We have found, shocking to us, that bats crash into each other quite often. It’s a messy situation, but generally it’s very safe and it works very well.”
Yep. Just because they are sensitive enough to detect something doesn’t mean they are agile enough to avoid it. I can see my environment just fine and I still give myself bruises walking in to tables and door frames.
Sue the bat!
If this doesn’t teach her to shut her mouth, nothing will…
Well that sucks.
This isn’t the comic book story I was hoping it’d turn into.
Who are you?
I’m batmouth
He’s smiling because she doesn’t spit.
