Lee Grotevant values his health and insurance By Linda Billetter

Lee Grotevant values his health and insurance
By Linda Billetter

Reprinted with permission from Expressions, Vol. 11, No. 4, April 2002

Accounting Tax Analyst Lee Grotevant knows firsthand the value of having a good health insurance policy. "If I didn’t have good health insurance, I probably would have died," he said. "I would have ignored the early symptoms if I had had to pay the full price for the doctor’s appointment and the tests that followed. When you have a major illness, you have enough to worry about without wondering how the medical bills will be paid."

In 1996 Lee was diagnosed with bladder cancer. "Even finding it at that early stage was very expensive because of all the biopsies and treatments they did." After his treatments Lee’s cancer went into remission until last year. Even though he had had cancer before, it took almost a year to diagnose it again "I was clean from 1996 to 2001," he said.

Lee Grotevant says he’s alive because of good health insurance and modern medical technology.

Lee describes the medical technology that made his surgery possible as amazing. The procedure involved taking part of his intestine to construct a bladder. Although his cancerous bladder was removed, Lee’s sense of humor is alive and well. He said, "I have a $70-80,000 bladder. I had a $60,000 operation, and all I had to pay is $100." Lee suggested dividing $25 (the amount employees pay each month for their own Enhanced PPO) into $60,000 to see how long it would take to pay for such surgery. (It comes out to 200 years.)

"Anyone who thinks our insurance costs too much needs to check around and compare what they are getting," said Lee. "We have the best deal in town from what I’ve seen.

"Employees shouldn’t complain about the small increase in the cost of their insurance. The Company can’t absorb all of the cost — we have to do our part."