Health Insurance / Gesundheitsversicherung

It's insurance switchover time at Pennington, and we've had a flurry of emails explaining the new plan with lots of instructions and forms and options in the last week. It seems like every year, amidst great confusion, a new health insurance plan is introduced. It's always one that costs more and offers less and is more complicated and involves more paperwork than the previous one because that's the way the American insurance industry seems to go. Still, insurance is insurance, and in the US you take what you can get.

The new company is called Oxford, and as it turns out, neither Nikolas' pediatrician nor the family doctor that Peter and I think so much of, include Oxford in the numerous insurance companies they work with. The professional advice about this issue? Call your doctors and ask them to add Oxford to their lists. Hmmm. At this point, Oxford insurance conjures up images of a cheap storefront on the edge of a pot-hole-riddled parking lot which is empty, except for small mountains of litter. A hand-stenciled sign is taped to the front window and inside is brown, thread-bare industrial strength carpeting with a couple second-hand plywood desks set one behind the other. At the front desk sits a secretary with tight mini skirt filing her nails and cracking pink bubble gum, while Mr. Oxford sits at the second desk, a large sweaty man with brown polyester pants and a collection of old half-full styrofoam coffee cups covering his work space. Ok, so maybe Oxford is actually legit and my imaginings are way off base. But it's hard to understand why Nikolas' pediatrician, who is a part of one of the largest pediatric practices in the Princeton area with some 15,000 children under their care and 46 insurance companies on their list, would not work with Oxford.

We will miss the Austrian health care system next year greatly. There are no complicated forms or plans or networks here. As a student, I am the primary holder of our family insurance. It costs 24 Euros (about $30) a month for complete coverage. There are no copays or deductibles, no lists of doctors who are in or out, no conditions or exceptions or referrals or fine print or red tape. We all have an ID card called an eCard which is all we need to see any doctor of our choosing about anything that we might want. The eCard covers us for most prescription medicines and greatly subsidizes others as well.

I came across an interesting opinion piece from the Christian Science Monitor today (which you can read here) talking about Finland and how Finns define luxury. Among the things the author mentions is the Finnish healthcare system which, like Austria, is almost free, all encompassing, and helps provide a high quality of life and peace of mind. A comprehensive health care plan does indeed provide for peace of mind. And so while we enjoy the peace of mind that we have this year, we will spend the next three days (because, of course, everything must be signed and sealed immediately or else...or else what?) trying to unravel the complexities of Oxford insurance and trying to figure out how to get our doctors to pick up this company, while looking forward to claim forms and copays and all the other silliness that goes along with American health care....and, of course, looking forward to the joy of getting to do this all over again in a year's time when the plan switches yet again!