I work in a small nursing home in West Virginia. Our company was bought out by a very large Nursing Home conglomerate Sunrise of New Mexico. Of course many changes took place and was to be expected. The one major change was our health insurance. The company decided we could no longer carry the insurance we had but HAD to switch to one of two that they offered. One was CIGNA, which many of us felt was the more affordable of the two.
After the intial sign up we were informed of a rate increase of approximately 90%, but within in the week they increased again to over 100%. Many of us make slightly above minimum wage (not exactly the high income bracket) and had to either drop family members or drop the insurance completely-it was either insurance or food. Some us started doing some investigation on our own and discovered that the Health Insurance company did not raise their rates, that Sunrise raised our rates. We have reported them to the BBB only to be told that it would have to be reported to the Attorney general and that they would have to decide if there was anything to be investigated. We did this and was told oh we will check it out. We are still waiting.
So now we have many single parent households with childern and insurance that we can no longer afford and those of us that feel we have to cover our childern trying to make ends meet (unsucessfully) while this very large company is making increases that the insurance company claims is Sunrise's doing and not theirs. (which I can only assume the extra increase is going into their pockets not the insurance company's) It seems to me there should be something we could do but I am at a loss.
The company will not allow us to go to an outside source to look for group insurance, although they will allow us to go to a private company on our own like we could really afford private rates. Maybe nothing can be done but right now I'm willing to try anything to help myself and co-workers get more reasonable rates of health insurance. I would appreciate any advice on this matter.
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