Health insurance lapsed due to employer fraud. How to get medications while in transition?
Check with the manufacturer of the name brand medication.  Most of them have programs to help people who need their medication but can not afford it.  They may be able to send you coupons for discounted or free medication.  You can go to a free clinic.  If your income is low enough the free clinic will provide medicine until you can get back on insurance.   You can do what alot of people who work hard and do not have insurance do and pay for it outof pocket.  You can talk to your doctor and see if there is an alternative to the expensive medicine that your insurance used to pay for. It may not be as effective or may have other side affects but many people are forced to go with these alternatives.   You situation is certianly unfortunate but also not terribly uncommon.  You probably also have recourse against the former employer but if they commited fraud, and faked your insurance there probably is not alot of money to recoup.  If it was a person who commited fraud then you may be able to get a judgement against them that would survive bankruptcy and the business but it will probably be at least 5 years before you can recoup anything possibly much longer and your attorney will probably not take it on contingency. Your doctor may also have free samples available. You could call, explain your situtation and ask to see if they have any free samples.
Yup. I scrutinize the income statement I receive from my employer every year. What I make vs what the company actually invests in me as an employee is really astounding. Beyond my hourly wage, the company pays for my health insurance premium (all but $10/check), and pays for a medical flex-spending account. On top of this (I know this isn't taxes but it's still an expense and government sanctioned) if I do some dumbass thing to get myself hurt at work, they'd pay all medical bills since it happened on their property.   We recently had a bit of a wake-up call this summer, as the board of directors warned everyone that the current medical plan our company provides to us is not sustainable, and will have to undergo changes (we're going to either start paying for our premiums, decrease our flex accounts, or charge smokers additional fees) beginning Jan 1st. Lots of people are complaining about this. I don't think they're aware of the horde of expenses and fees that the company swallows for them in other ways.  There's property taxes, business income taxes, excise taxes, customs/duty taxes, state taxes... along with meeting the restrictions and standards of certain governmental agencies (like OSHA). I don't know how a small business owner could ever maintain control over all of this financial mess and be able to help their customers or other employees.   There's OSHA, a profit-seeking (through citations) business now, instead of a partner and ally to businesses. A typical 'violation' is $70K, and a 'repeat' violation is $140K. Imagine running a small grocery store, and having to pay this fine because you accidentally had a piece of styrofoam lying on top of a cooler not built to withstand overhead weight. Or because someone wasn't wearing safety shoes in the store. You'd simply go out of business. "I was in the health insurance game for 10 years and never heard of this until the Affordable Care Act came about.  To my knowledge, there is no rule or regulation prohibiting it, however trying to get an insurer underwrite that risk is extremely unlikely. It's the same reason why you don't see AAA offering health insurance. There isn't a contractual relationship between the church and their constituents, so no underwriter worth their salt would put a reasonable price on that risk.   Members can easily come and go, and since insurance through your employer is still the dominant distribution channel for health insurance, it would be seen as an adverse risk, meaning that people who couldn't get it through ""normal"" channels must be getting it through the church, which it would then be assumed that this person applying for coverage is an ""adverse risk"" or someone who is abnormally unhealthy.  There are faith-based healthcare reimbursement programs that are NOT health insurance and do not satisfy the ACA required minimum coverages. From what I've seen and read, it's basically members of the religion or faith that pay money into the system (like paying an insurance premium) and they elect a board that basically evaluates each claim and pays or doesn't pay it, either partially or in full. While this is a nice way to get your bills paid, odds are it won't cover your $300,000 cancer treatment or your $50,000 cesarean section birth." "Well, that's about 3% higher than the national average, so... I'm not sure if we should be relieved or disturbed.  Personally, I find it deplorable that insurance companies are *allowed* to randomly exclude pesky unprofitable things they don't want to cover.  Floods?  No thanks.  Dental/Vision?  Why *ever* would you consider those ""medical"" issues?  Uninsured drivers?  Yeah, you live in a state that requires 100% of drivers have insurance, but **suck it anyway**, since you have no choice, mwa-hahaha!  And people seriously wonder why I utterly loathe insurance companies.  Insurance ""fraud"" should be viewed not as a crime, but as the moral frickin' high ground; it's *insurance itself* that is little short of fraud-hidden-in-a-6pt-font." Prediction: costs won't go down.    The basis for that is the cost of insurance for health has never gone down in the history of that product mainly due to the fixed market.  There is competition, but pricing is so rigged as health insurance companies and employers have completely removed pricing from consumers experience.    Until everyone has individual/independent insurance away from their jobs, healthcare costs will never be in check. When employers gtfo of your business and stop providing benefits and people have to buy their own insurance, that is the only time there will be any real market or real pricing in healthcare/medical. I've considered just calling the out-of-network hospital and asking   them to reduce the charges. Ideally they would send my health   insurance provider a smaller bill which I could just pay. However I   want to be careful about how I proceed. Yes, that's what you should be doing. They might give you a discount, but even if not - they will definitely be willing to work out a payment plan for you so that you could pay in installments and not in a lump sum. I have experience with the El Camino group in California, that did just that. It was several hundreds, so they didn't give a discount, but were able to work out an installment plan for several months without much hassle. That is something to do before you get to lawyers. I'm not sure I know how the lawyer could be useful to you, other than claiming bankruptcy or waiting for them to turn to collections and then fight those. You should also work with your insurance. How much is your deductible? If your deductible is so high that it exceeds the several thousands bill you got - do you have a HSA? FSA? These will allow you paying the bill with pre-tax money, saving quite a lot (depending on your brackets and how much you put there). I would expect the insurance to bill you for the deductible, and cover all the rest. Is it not what is happening? It is illegal.   Coverage has a lot of minimum requirements.      What has really hurt Obamacare is that it groups those that were formerly uninsured, with those that don't have employer insurance.      It turns out those that were previously uninsured (often very poor) are very expensive to insure.   So that has forced up premiums on everyone else.       The link of health insurance to employment in the US is to blame.  The sooner everyone is forced to buy their own insurance, and then preferably the government offers medicare buy in for all, the sooner the system can be cleaned up. "Is there any way out from letting the money disappear into a black hole? But that is the whole point of insurance; the ""black hole"" = the insurance company.  That's how they stay in business.  You are giving up your money to them, but you get something in return:  a guarantee of financial rescue if something happens to you medically.  Considering how much health care costs can cost in the U.S., this is not insubstantial. To the degree that you might be able to divert some of that money out of the ""black hole"" and back into your pocket, or a charity, would be equivalent to reducing your premium costs.  There are few ways to do that, but none too significantly.  E.g., sometimes plans have health programs that customers can participate in and get a small discount, etc.  But for the most part, you are stuck.  Welcome to the U.S. Health Care System. One tiny tip:  see if your school offers a free flu shot this fall; many do, it seems, so there is $15 saved.  The school's human resources office would probably know about this." Good move by Amazon. As it is now I go to Costco to fill any pricey prescriptions. For example , a tier 3 medicine will cost me 30% co-pay up to $120 but no less than $60 for a 30 day supply. I went to Walgreens and they were charging my insurance $800 and thus I had to pay $120. Same exact medicine at Costco cost my insurance $260 and I paid $60. Same exact medicine, same dosage , same strength. The markup on meds is nuts.