Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I wanted to take a moment to thank all the wonderful people that donated time and money to helping to save our health care.  I sent a personal email to the folks that donated but wanted to put a general thank you out to the world as a whole.  You are all so very amazing and I am actually struggling for words on what to say.  I think, to steal from my earlier email, I can say it always amazes me when smaller groups of people pull together to take action and make big decisions and direction.  People often think that one vote or that one dollar is not going to make a difference and, well, this is one time that I have to tell you it will and it does.

When I first put up the Fundable.com and Antharia.com donation pages I was not sure what I hoped would happen.  There was that momentary lottery insanity that zillions of people would donate but there was also just the very real theory that no one would.  I just sat back and a day or so went by and then 1 donation came in, then 2 or 3, then 4, 5, 6 and then next thing I knew it exploded.  I did not want to make the only thing we said on facebook and twitter a plea for money but I also needed to make sure folks knew we were serious.  Taking a 5% cut in pay was pretty drastic for all of us and losing health care would hurt in more ways than we could imagine.  We had to ask and so asking I did and answering you did.

Donations ranged from $10 to $200 and some people sent in emails and letters wishing us the very best and telling us about their health care woes.  It seems that and nor did I think that Antharia was alone in this boat, but many people are either struggling to keep or have also lost their health care.  Health care has been an issue for "forever".  It is not this President's thing, he did not make it, he inherited it.  My very smart cousin said pre-election that whomever was elected was going to be a janitor.  I asked him what he meant and he said that whomever was elected had the horrible and daunting task of cleaning up all the messes made before him.  I never realized how right my cousin was.

I am not sure if President Obama's health care plan is good or bad or right or wrong.  I just know I have owned my company for 16 years as of May.  We started offering Health Care to full time employees in 1999.  I can remember when it was only $150 and we covered it 100%, It was a mindless thing to do for the staff.  Over the last 10 years it has gone up, gone up, gone up and as I watched it go up, I think I was in some kind of denial that there had to be a bubble or cap or something.  That somewhere sanity had to be reached or a peak and then plateau would be arrived at.  That health care, like many things had to have a cap.  After all, how much does that really uncomfortable paper on those doctors tables cost you (scratchy paper evidence to right)?  I even find myself not sitting on it and sitting in the chair if I can to avoid mussing it up unnecessarily. But then again, no matter what I do I am billed the same rate for that visit, so maybe I have it backwards... maybe I need to over burden my doctor on each visit, get weighted, have my BP checked, muss up the paper on the table, clean my ears out with those giant q-tips, take some tongue compressors to play with for the cats, you know maximize it... oh wait that does not seem right either.

Anyway, my findings are this... yes health care has a peak and limits.  Only it turns out that after you do the climb, you gash your knees on the jagged edges of rocks and you slip in crevaces walked by many people before you, the big brother of health care companies offers no plateau but rather a precipice, and honey they are not offering any warning signs about the steep fall ahead of you and well, maybe if you are lucky they will cover you when you break some bones on your way down.

I did get a lot of suggestions from folks on things to try or using a high deductible.  This seems like an option but I am not sure if you folks realize that it is not as much of a savings as you may hope or think.  For example the plan we have now with no deductible has a $10 primary care visit, $20 specialist, $20-40 scripts depending on what you are getting, $50 ER if you are not admitted.  Pretty good in our mind.  That is the $1915 per month for five people.  The next plan down adds a $1500 deductible, 80/20 on doctors and specialists, $30-50 on scripts, ER = you pay unless admitted.  Ready to know how much we save?  $300 per month.  To save $300 would mean to compromise the health care to the point that it is almost not worth having.  Our coverage through Blue Cross is pretty dang good.  I have been happy with it for the 10 years I have had it.  I am not happy to see it go up and up and up but I am not sure what can be done.  If President Obama gets some kind of health care reform going and it actually works I guess that will over some kind of relief for small businesses but lets be clear on that one too... the term small business as defined by the United States Government is any employer with 50 employees.  So see, Antharia is not a small business, we are a gnat buzzing in the ears of the good people who listen.

I am starting to rant and babble and the two never are good.  To those that donated time and money I can not say thank you enough.  You have our adoration and as always our love and respect.

Warmly,

Jordan Dossett, Founder & Creative Director

Antharia is still accepting donations to continue 2009 health care. As you can imagine costs are not going to go back down, the economy is not going to flip and turn around overnight. Please consider giving $2-5!

Posted by Jordan Dossett on September 02, 2009 at 02:15 pm EST

Copyright © Antharia. All rights reserved.
No part of this blog may be reproduced without prior written permission.