Cookbooks, Health Insurance, RV-Dreams Facebook, & RV Education - (Chester, CA)

Well the RV-Dreams Family Favorites Cookbooks arrived at the end of last week.  Today, with the holiday weekend behind us, Linda mailed out about 30 cookbooks which had already been ordered.  :)

Surprisingly, some of those were re-orders from folks that got one in the prior batch last year.  :)

Today, we also received a notice about our health insurance premiums going up August 1.  I always budget for a 10% increase with expectations it could be as high as 20%.  But this increase was going from $195 to $270 per month, a 38% increase.

As a reminder, we have Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  It is a PPO plan with a national network of providers.  It has a Health Savings Account (click on the link for our discussion of HSAs) feature and we have a $10,000 deductible with $0 co-insurance after the deductible.

Now $270 a month is still not bad for the both of us.  But I wanted to see if we could do better.  So, as I always do, I went to the -eHealthInsurance - FREE Instant Quotes! - website and plugged in our zip code and birthdates.  Then I clicked on the HSA tab.

A few plans popped up.  The ones with $10,000 deductibles had premiums from $127 per month to $158 per month.  That's more like it.  :)

Anthem BC/BS had a Lumenos HSA Plan 3 with a premium of $154.  It looked better than our current plan since you can get periodic exams where the deductible is waived.

I called Anthem.  Our current plan is not being sold anymore, and they recommened the Lumenos plan.  The premium quoted was $135 subject to completing an application and going through underwriting.  The premium quoted was lower than the one on ehealthinsurance because we already have a good experience rating with Anthem.

The worst case scenario is we don't get approved and we have to keep the current plan.  But hopefully we'll fly through underwriting and see our premiums reduced for a plan that is as good or better than the current one.  :)

Enough about that.

In addition to mailing the cookbooks and sending emails to the purchasers confirming they had been shipped, Linda took care of several administrative chores like renewing our Jeep registration, paying Jeep insurance, and mailing off our paychecks to be deposited.

We expect to get refunds for our California tax withholdings, but California is now issuing I.O.U.s for some of their payments.  Hopefully, we won't get one of those next year.  :)

She also made a grocery stop and did laundry while she was out.

Most of the rest of the afternoon, I worked on Facebook.  I'm still trying to grasp it, but I learned that they have something called "Pages" which are more conducive to business.  It took me quite awhile to figure out the benefits over the "Groups" and to make sure it was something we wanted to do.

So I set up an RV-Dreams.com Facebook Page which we will use as our official Facebook presence and to provide updates.

We already have over 80 "Fans".  We need over 100 to get a special username which will give us a more compact URL to publish and link to the page.  We should get there pretty quickly thanks to our loyal followers.  :)

The whole Facebook thing is sort of an experiment.  It seems like it will expand our reach, but it may fall in the "Oh no, what have I done?!" category of things I get myself into.  :)

One other thing of note to our readers.  The RV Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF) has announced they are attempting to fill the void left by the demise of Life On Wheels.  They are holding an RV Lifestyle, Education & Safety Clinic in Pennsylvania this September.

Not surprisingly, it looks very similar to the former Life On Wheels course schedule with many of the same instructors.  It is set up with several courses to choose from during the same time periods.

Our friends Jim & Chris Guld (Geeks On Tour) and Nick Russell (Gypsy Journal) are teaching many of the courses.  We wish them and RVSEF well in this new venture!  :)

Of course, if you like a more intimate, more social setting, you can always attend the RV-Dreams Rally in Kerrville, TX from October 7 - 11 and get quite a bit of education on the RV lifestyle as well.  :)

Well, that's about it for today.  Tomorrow, we hope to get out and do some hiking.  :)

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Comments

[John Dynan]

One question to ask your Health Care provider is "what if" I don't necessary plan on being in the state the policy is written in. I found out that the provider "expects" you to be in the state of issue, except for the occasional trip out of the coverage area. It may be a factor of coverage if they start getting bills from different states if medical care is needed.
It's good to know the answer up front rather than when you are facing a bill if the situation arises.

[Judy Schmader]

Another "what if" is that most have Health Care providers that will only cover certain doctors in certain areas, in otherwords network providers, and if out of the network you will really pay more in a visit to doctor or hospital if on the road.

[Howard]

John & Judy,

You are correct that many insurers have limited network areas.

That's why we emphasize on our Health Insurance page that folks verify that the insurer has a national network of providers (in-network providers). Of course we made that determination ahead of time for our own policy. :)

[Tim Fansler]

We also have health insurance from Anthem BCBS, which is really Wellpoint. Back in 2005 my job was being outsourced to IBM, along with many others in the technical support areas. I was eligilbe for early retirment from Wellpoint, so I took it in order to get the retiree health insurance, as well as to roll over my frozen fixed benefit pension plan into an IRA with Vanguard. Since then our share of the premiums have skyrocketed, but just got notifcation that this year our premiums will be going up a whopping $2.00/month.

I was worried that what with the horrendous medical expenses associated with my wife's recovery from burns a year ago, our premiums would double again or some such. Of course they can still trump up some excuse to cancel our coverage altogether, but I think we're good for another year now.... Health insurance is a biggie, make no mistake about it, but if you shop around you can find something you can afford... No matter what the governemt says, there are 1300 or so health insurance providers out there who are competing mightily for your business..