#it's been months since they started actually paying for my inhalers but I'm still salty about it!

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all! I am once again in health insurance hell, and could really use some help. I have a specific US health insurance question, but it might get long so it's below a read more

My employer offers two health plan options, and they are both absolutely terrible. I want to get my own health insurance, but the insurance broker lady I used when I worked part time says I can't, because I can get health insurance through my employer, even if I opt out. I spoke to another health insurance person today, and she said if I get a letter on company letterhead saying I'll lose health insurance on [date], as long as it's 60 days or less from now, it counts as a qualifying event and I can buy my own health insurance. She said opting out counted as losing health insurance. Do you know anything about this? How do I get health insurance as an individual NOT through my employer even though my employer offers it? The plans my employer is offering are Aetna, and Aetna is the absolute worst and I despise them as a company so much one of my long term goals is to warn people against them. They suck! They refused to pay for my inhaler until I got my doctor to fill out a form like three times, and also I had to email them A LOT and fill out a LOT of surveys with an emphasis on how horrifying I found it that they as a company clearly valued profit over their customer's lives, and would in fact prefer their customers die before they could reach the ER in case of an emergency, as evidenced by their refusing to pay for my rescue inhaler, a necessary life-saving medication. They also require I fill that form out every year, just in case I magically stop being in the small minority of people who get severe adverse reactions to albuterol and levalbuterol

#the person behind the yarn #tj is in insurance hell #I also promised Aetna I'd make it a goal to share my story on social media about how terrible they are as an insurance company #it's been months since they started actually paying for my inhalers but I'm still salty about it! #and I am not done telling people they are terrible #I promised them on all those surveys that I would post on social media and tell people in person whenever I had the slightest excuse #I said I'd tell every medical professional pharmacist and person in a waiting room I ever interacted with #and then they were magically willing to pay for my inhaler! #I'm still telling people though. It wasn't a 'pay for my inhaler or else' kind of thing #I was just telling them what was going to happen because of how they chose to run their business #so yeah. Aetna's the worst avoid them if you can #the didn't pay for my heart monitor when I've had idiopathic tachycardia for OVER A DECADE #they don't want to pay for one of my meds because they want me to use a specific pharmacy #but I'm allergic to the inactive ingredients used by the only manufacturer they have for that medication #I literally can't take it without having a severe allergic reaction #but they still want me to use it because it comes from the pharmacy they own #(or are owned by the same parent company? Not sure what it says specifically on paper)