Health Insurance

When I was working we used the health insurance my company provided, because it was a non-profit and the pay is poor they tend to "make it up" by providing good health insurance. With my first pregnancy we didn't pay anything, all the visits, the extra visits for my medical problems and then the hospital... Nothing! All the well baby check ups and sick check ups, nothing other then the copay. When we moved and I became a stay-at-home mom we had to take my husband's company's medical insurance, which is just horrible. His company paid for the first $1,500 of the $3,000 deductible, then once we hit the $3,000 we were responsible for 20% of all the bills until we reached $6,000 out of pocket! Ouch. My second pregnancy we wound up doing just that paying $6,000 out of pocket by the end of the year. Since it was a different doctor, my extra care was done at the hospital instead of a doctors office so that brought up the costs of things. With my first doctors they would have just had me do a test in their office, with my second doctor the minute something was slightly wrong she would send me straight to the maternity ward of the hospital. This year I was counting on it being easier financially on us, provided the kids stayed healthy. Which for the most part it was, a couple runs to the doctor in the beginning of the year then up until December just well baby checkups. For over 3 weeks both kids were sick and we made about 6 trips to the doctor. Just after Christmas I got a huge bill for blood work I had done in the beginning of the month. So I know we've got a bunch more bills coming. 

I find myself debating between taking my child to the doctor and worrying about the end cost of it. That is a horrible feeling. Do I take my baby who has a fever or my daughter who has been complaining that her knee hurts (she says knee but she points to her knee or ankle at different times, plus there hasn't been any trauma to it) or do I hold off and see if they work through it? I shouldn't have to feel that way. If my child is sick or in pain, my first thought should be how soon can I get them in, not is this really worth the possible cost. Then when I make the decision that it isn't really dire to go to the doctor, the little voice in the back of my mind is going you are being a bad mom, what if this is something more. Where is the support for families like us, the ones in the middle? If we made less money we could go on medicare and have everything covered. But my pride wouldn't allow me to take a handout like that and that would mean our kids would miss out on a lot more things. If we had better jobs, we'd have better health insurance options and/or the money wouldn't be the concern.