It's a bit of a long story, but here goes. I always liked the idea of the ACA (Obama Care). At the time, I was getting insurance through a state program because every private company refused to cover me, the "high risk pool". Great coverage too. Just because it was a state run program, didn't mean it was cheap, I paid plenty in premiums, but at least I was covered.
When the ACA came along, it removed the pre-existing condition clause from private insurance, meaning they could no longer deny people like me.. As a result, the state program closed down. We turned right away to the company that had been administering the state program. It wasn't much more than what we had been paying, and the coverage was still great.
After two years with them, that company had a contract dispute with the group of doctors that I use. Keeping my doctors was the highest priority at the time, so we switched companies. The original company ultimately resolved the contract dispute, but we had already switched, to be safe. We never had any problems with the new insurance.
It was late in the first year of the new insurance that I started dialysis. Last year, we were going to take a five week long road trip in September and October, but in May, I stepped on a nail, and we had to cancel the trip. We would have found out last year that we had this problem. This problem has a name, it's called "out of network". So now we have go shopping again. Medicare, would probably allow me to travel, but there's good chance that it will be more expensive out of pocket, than private.
Bottom line, at the time we signed up with our current company, we never thought to ask about this stuff. The problem only became obvious last July
