Can we talk?

Medical Insurance

    Everyone's ranting. No answers. Here's the bottom line for people like me.
    My insurance expired. I need to get new insurance immediately. I can't go over 60 days without it or my rates will be hiked up, so I'm told. I've been three weeks without it.
    My premiums will be very high. I expected it to be high, but maybe $50 less than what it actually turned out. My deductible is $5000. Considering that I have had 2 or 3 years when my expenses came to that much or more, that's understandable, too. Not pleasant, but understandable.
    I have a problem with excluding everything relating to ongoing illnesses from the deductible and the payable for 12 months! That seems punitive to have double whammies. If you're going to exclude those charges, which will be the bulk of my expenses, why have such a high deductible for new occurrences? Stokes, cancer, accidents, flu, and colds will be covered only after $5000 has been paid by me for those things. Basically, the insurance company is being sure they won't have to pay anything for me, including drugs for a full year, while collecting over $6000 in premiums.
    Anything related to heart trouble is entirely my own responsibility. I have to do monthly blood tests, sometimes more often, to monitor blood thickness/clotting. Plus, cholesterol and other tests twice a year, bone density once a year due to seizure medicine side effects, the neurologist twice a year or more for seizure monitoring, the cardiologist every 3 months until my problem is seen as stable (I'm leaking blood around the stitches holding my artificial valve), a camera down the throat to look at my heart every six months, at about $1000 each time, and the general practioner twice a year for the overall picture.
    So I'm looking at not being sick, or at least not seeing the doctor about it, praying I don't step on a nail or bang my shins, or have a problem with bunions for at least one whole year. I have to see the cardiologist, like it or not. Oh, I forgot. The deductible starts over Jan. 1, before the 12 month period is up. I have to stay well and safe for as long as possible. At least, a heart attack can count as of June 2011.
Heart related charges are all mine.
    I haven't been on vacation since 1993. Maybe I can take one in 2012.