Shopping Sucks...

When you're shopping for health care, that is.

I am a lucky, lucky nanny. I have full health coverage through my employers (and a sweet parking garage pass), and am only required to contribute the cost of adding Mark onto my policy, which makes health care a happy reality for our little family-to-be. This year, with the rising costs of health care, our premiums nearly doubled, leaving me wondering, "What else is out there?"

So, I've been doing the research, and somehow the options are getting more and more confusing, especially with the Commonwealth's new mandatory coverage laws going into effect. There's a scramble at the HMOs to present eleventy more plans, so as to be able to milk hard earned money from everyone, no longer only from the priviledged few. Add in the difference between Mark being the primary insured (putting us in a pool with all the other self-employed types), or me being the primary insured, and paying rack rates for coverage.

And now we have this blessed event to consider. An individual coverage plan for the baby? A family plan? The answer seemed obvious to me, but I was wrong... And in the meanwhile, as I ponder the options and work out the budget, a heftier chunk of my paycheck goes to our old company, now that the rate increase has gone into effect. I can almost hear the money flying out of my wallet.

Blue Cross? Fallon? Midwest? Neighborhood? Harvard Pilgrim? Tufts? United?

It's enough to put a girl in the hospital...