Insurance: Bringing parents to the U.S.
Jan 17th 2011, 3:04 pm
#16
BE Site Lead
Joined: Aug 2004
Location: MA, USA
Posts: 92,172
Re: Insurance: Bringing parents to the U.S.
And unless they changed it, you had to be a MA resident for 12 months before you could buy into the Mass Care insurance thing, as a way to stop people moving here for subsidised insurance, so that first year was always a problem.
The real knock on effect because of MA Care though, most group plans you could have gotten from trade associations and guilds etc don't offer cover in MA.
Jan 17th 2011, 4:18 pm
#17
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 12,865
Re: Insurance: Bringing parents to the U.S.
Pray they don't have a serious medical condition before those five years are up.
Jan 17th 2011, 6:18 pm
#18
Just Joined
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 3
Re: Insurance: Bringing parents to the U.S.
Yes the MA Commonwealth Care does take assets into account, but they do not own there home or have other assets, so they will qualify.
Jan 18th 2011, 2:23 am
#19
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 12,865
Re: Insurance: Bringing parents to the U.S.
I was referring to the nasty habit of insurance companies to drop policyholders once they've had a significant illness. Being insured today is no guarantee of being insured five years down the road. Or even one.
Jan 18th 2011, 4:05 am
#20
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 22,105
Re: Insurance: Bringing parents to the U.S.
I brought both my parents to the US 2 years ago as greencard holders. They both have insurance with blue cross blue shield of MA, it costs them $14,700 per year to cover them both. they have a deductable of $1,000 each and a co-pay of $25 for office visits and RX coverage at 15/50/100. They will not get any help with the cost until they have been resident for 5 years. After that they will get Medicaid from the state.
I made sure that we would be able to fund their insurance costs for the full 5 years before they applied for their greencards. Both my parents have pre-existing conditions dad (68) has diabetis and mum(69) had a thyroid problem as well as just getting older.
I made sure that we would be able to fund their insurance costs for the full 5 years before they applied for their greencards. Both my parents have pre-existing conditions dad (68) has diabetis and mum(69) had a thyroid problem as well as just getting older.
I think it sounds great and I'm glad to hear its not all doom and gloom....
Last edited by AmerLisa; Jan 18th 2011 at 4:11 am.
Jan 18th 2011, 7:58 am
#21
Account Closed
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 2
Re: Insurance: Bringing parents to the U.S.
I believe they use a lot of Medicaid money to subsdise their system, if that dries up or they have issues with the match the first step is more likely that they limit the extent of coverage, but then everybody is doing that.
