and I bought our first house, I was working as a car salesman and making good money. We just found out that my wife was pregnant with our second child, and things were looking very good for us.
My co-workers and I didn't know it, but the car dealership had been experiencing some financial problems for several months. Only the boss knew that for the past few months revenue was going down because sales had been slipping. The boss made several cost cutting attempts before he told the employees there were problems. The salesmen couldn't use the cars on the lot anymore, and we had to start paying for the coffee in the break room. He even put cheaper supplies in the restrooms and changed the light bulbs everywhere to reduce the electric bill. Those measures helped but not enough, so he finally told the employees about the financial difficulties the company was experiencing. He said before he laid off even one employee, he wanted to try some other things. He cut the work hours for the office and sales employees and told the managers they could choose between cutting their salary or hours. Anyone who quit wasn't replaced.
Four months later the company was still experiencing financial problems. The boss still refused to lay off anyone, so the next thing to be taken away from us was health insurance coverage. This was bad news for my wife and me because she was five months pregnant. Without insurance, we would have to pay for the prenatal care and hospital delivery bills ourselves; and that could be very costly. We needed insurance to cover the pregnancy, so it seemed I only had two choices: buy the COBRA insurance to cover the pregnancy or find a new job that offered an HMO insurance plan since an HMO would cover the pre-existing pregnancy.
I wasn't able to find another job, so I had to buy the COBRA insurance, which cost us over $450 a month to cover the whole family. At first my wife and I were only going to cover the pregnancy, but since the COBRA didn't cover my wife for anything but the pregnancy and the rest of the family had no insurance, we were concerned. What if one of us got sick or injured and needed to go to the hospital? We really struggled each month to pay that $450 bill, but by cutting back on some unnecessary expenses, restructuring our spending and using credit cards, we managed.
It turned out to be a good thing that we got the COBRA insurance for the family. Our little boy ended up hospitalized for several days with a high fever, and I got hurt doing some maintenance around our house and had to go to the emergency room. Those hospital bills would have been much more than what the insurance cost us for four months. We had a very small co-payment for these two incidents, and the insurance covered everything else.
I'm still working for the car dealership, and my company still doesn't offer health insurance. Fortunately, we are covered under the insurance for my wife's job. With two small kids we would like for her to stay home and take care of the house and family and maybe baby-sit a couple of other children, but we need to have her health insurance.
If you are curious about prices you only need to get a few health insurance quotes to find out the scoop. Good medical insurance is crucial for many reasons and you don't want to be without it.
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