healthcare

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Healthcare and the insurance to pay for it, is screwed up. While most of you are shopping for toys for Christmas, I just spent the morning on the phone ordering Diabetes supplies for the remainder of the year. Only in America can a basic human right (health that is) be handled so wrong. By the numbers Here is how the system is screwed up: Today, putting in my last order for the year, I just reached one of the individual deductibles on our policy.  so lets look at the balance. The insurance company this year charged: Me: $577 * 12 […]

A screwed up tale of American Healthcare

 in healthcare / Insurance  tagged Health Insurance by
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With all the support and extra traffic coming from my friends at FreedomIsGroovy.com, I feel compelled to put down some thoughts. I tend to not write about politics, but never has politics hit home as hard as this year. The first effects are already felt and potential upcoming changes may hit even harder. ACA Renewal It’s ObamaCare renewal time. Last year, I received probably 50 timely emails/messages letting us know it was coming up. This year I received a single text. I’m personally aware of what’s happening but it makes you wonder, how many will miss this year’s enrollment due […]

The month of unknowns

 in finances / healthcare / retirement / Taxes by
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At last year’s dentist appointment, it was pointed out that our son has an overbite. As it could destroy his teeth, left untreated, certainly something that should be addressed by orthodontics. Normally, when a doctor or dentist tells you your child needs X, Y or Z care, you don’t hesitate; you take care of it. We immediately saw an orthodontist. Course of treatment would be internal braces that would be screwed outward a little each week, squeezing his upper cleft outward a little at a time. It would last for about 6 months to a year, to be followed up […]

I’m glad we waited, NO orthodontics!

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Looking on my calendar on June 21st I realized, my third retirement anniversary on June 18th had come an gone. As a Financial blogger and early successful retiree that date should have been marked prominently, instead it just past by. Maybe it’s because after a while it looses it’s significance. Maybe, its because the 18th was father’s day and my mind was occupied with lovely, meaningful crafts from my children. Maybe it was because I was equally occupied, chewing on the left side of my mouth because of a filling place the day prior had gone wrong. It now turns […]

Happy Third Anniversary on Retirement, Oh and more Healthcare

 in FIRE / healthcare / retirement / Uncategorized by
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Well, I would have liked to have written this with nothing but good stuff that happened this year, but I can’t. 2016 may well go down in memory for us as the worst year of our lives. Yes, financially things have been great, early retirement is now two and a half years in and going strong but 2016 is also the year that our 6 year old son was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. An autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system systematically attacks the pancreas no longer leaving it able to create insulin. Our six-year-old now needs to […]

2016 in Review, spoiler alert: for us it sucked!!

 in family / finances / healthcare / Insurance by
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They say you can’t put a price on a life. Well, there is something morally ambiguous about it, but it happens all the time. Sometimes, that pricing hits too close to home for comfort, in this case, when talking about the price of a life with diabetes. Our son has diabetes Before I go into the cold hard numbers let’s take a step back. Three months ago our son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. For those who don’t know, Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease in which a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone people need to get energy from […]

The price of a life with diabetes

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The following article is a guest post by Stacy Barbee. How I wish money tricks were taught in schools. In our times, schools and colleges primarily focused on obtaining good grades at the end of the academic year. And, that trend is still going on. The 2 fundamental aspects of an awesome financial life are: (i) Making money (ii) Managing money In the last few years, I have interacted without countless people who are not happy with their financial life and have been compelled to enroll in debt reduction programs. And, after hearing their stories, I have come to only one […]

8 Money Tricks That Can Save Young Adults From A ...

 in Budgeting / debt / education / finances / healthcare / Saving by
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If you follow this blog you’ll find I’ve written about healthcare a few times. Not so much the care itself but the cost of it. Coming from the Netherlands where healthcare is done differently was the actual motivator for me to build our nest-egg. I was worried that no matter what social status, you’re truly one disease away from bankruptcy. Since, I’ve seen two fund-me-now campaigns to support former colleagues, both battling cancer at the time. These were well-insured colleagues, higher up the corporate ladder than I was. Surely they could afford… Last year, our boy broke his elbow and the accompanied […]

Let’s talk about healthcare again

 in diabetes / healthcare by
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For those who have followed me, you know that I initially built my wealth out of fear, of some expensive disease/illness hitting us, putting me and my family in bankruptcy, like so many others before us. Never did I imagine this. Last week Friday, as I was about ready to publish my latest post when Mrs. Mi10 noticed something wrong with our boy. She was initially dismissed by our pediatrics clinic (read about it here) but with persistence was seen. She went, came home and only 40 minutes later the phone rang. Please come back right away… Long story short, last Friday […]

My little boy has diabetes

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I took the Marketplace Economic Anxiety Index test to see how I feel about the economy and my score was 7. My anxiety was way below that of the average of 37 for those in my age group. It made me believe the test says more about me as a person than about the economy (although there is a correlation about how people feel about economy that affects the economy). It’s not like I went through the test fearless. The 7 point probably came from the fact that I’m a little afraid to not be able to pay for my kid’s colleges […]

My Economic Anxiety Index went from 73 to 7

 in Building Wealth / healthcare / Insurance by
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There we have it, another year has passed and an interesting one it has been for us. This was the year I started this blog. It has been the first full year that I’ve been off of work and as a result we’ve tried to live by a fairly strict budget. We’ve had a shitty stock market and some serious medical expenses come our way but in the end we’re all doing just fine. The Blog It has been a year of blogging and writing for both me and my wife. January of this year I started this blog millionin10.com. […]

Millionin10 2015 in review

 in 5 keys / Blogging / Budgeting / Building Wealth / calculators / credit / debt / emergency fund / healthcare / Insurance / investing by
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As enrollment for next years health insurance has started for most, the saga of our medical bills continues. As I’m posting this we’ll be taking our son in for followup surgery to his elbow, for removal of pins (ICD-10 Z47.2). For those of you who follow this blog (if not, now would be good time to subscribe), some time ago our son broke his elbow (ICD-10 S52.601A) and required surgery to nail it all back in place. It was only after that, I found out what our deductible truly was. Not the individual deductible of $6,400 but instead the family […]

Despite the high cost, I’m still getting Health Insurance

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It has been close to a year since I created this blog millionin10 with the lofty goal of inspiring you to build wealth the way we did. I was a salaried employee with wife, kids, two cats and a picket fence (not white). I also happened to be an expat that came to this country some 18 years ago with only $500 and a diploma in my pocket; We now have over a million. If we could do it, why can’t you? Since the start of this blog I’ve written posts on topics varying from investing and how it shouldn’t […]

5 Keys to Building Wealth

 in Budgeting / calculators / credit / healthcare / investing / Saving  tagged frontpage by
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For those of you who follow my blog I’m sure my post on Shop around for health care, really? is fresh in your memory. If not, check it out but the short of it is that, my son broke his elbow 4 weeks ago and required surgery. I was frustrated by the myth that high deductibles will make people shop around and vented my thoughts on it. like my son’s cast above has changed from bright orange to somber black, so has my mood. In the original article I mentioned a health insurance deductible of $6,700 I was guaranteed to […]

My health insurance deductible is what???

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So our health insurance’s high deductibles are supposed to make us more conscious of pricing and have us shop around for the best prices… Bulls@#!! You’ll be given the example of how an x-ray costs 75 bucks at one provider and $350 at the next. CT scans at $2,000 at one provider and $500 at the next. When do you need an x-ray? That’s right, in most cases when you are in really urgent need of one. Your heart stopped beating so let’s do some price comparisons. Yes, there is a wide variety of pricing from one healthcare provider to […]

Shop around for health care, really?

 in healthcare / Insurance  tagged frontpage by
Another one of these cost of healthcare articles, ugh. Yes, another one and I hope more of these keep coming as things can be better here. This one I felt compelled to write as it is from a very personal point of view. After 3 years, we finally went back to the Netherlands to visit my parents. My parents are getting older and so are our kids. 3 years in the life of a child is like a lifetime (for both kids and grandparents). Yes we see each other on Skype every Sunday but that does come not close to […]

Cost of Healthcare elsewhere, seen firsthand

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