With all due respect to Hilary Swank, we have the real Million Dollar Baby living in our household.Every time Lexi flashes smiles our direction or showers us with coo's, we can't help but think she's worth a million bucks to us. However, when we make the bold assertion that she is the true Million Dollar Baby, we're not talking figuratively... we're talking literally. Not surprisingly, health care costs have played a significant role in our lives in the back half of 2008, and as of last week, successfully processed claims for Alexis Bunch have totaled $1,268,678.40. And believe it or not, that doesn't include the $466,684.94 in claims presently outstanding.
This Friday ends annual benefits enrollment for 2009, an event many people recognize as important, but fight the urge to quickly make a few selections and move on. We will be eternally grateful that we actually chose our options very carefully a year ago at this time for 2008, particularly when it came to health care benefits. Anheuser-Busch offers five medical plan options for its employees, and we obviously chose the one we felt would give us the best combination of coverage and flexibility, knowing that starting a family was a possibility on the horizon. Turns out our choice proved far more important than we ever could have imagined. Of the five health plans offered, four of them have lifetime maximum coverage per individual set at $1 million. Fortunately, we chose the plan behind door #5, which provides for unlimited lifetime claims. That particular provision certainly sounded like one of little relevance to a completely healthy 20-something year-old couple at the time, but Lexi changed that in a heartbeat -- literally. As a matter of fact, she was born in July and surpassed the $1 million mark in claims in September. We would prefer that Lexi channel her energy in other directions in the future, but by surpassing a lifetime claims threshold in less than three months of life, she clearly has demonstrated that we have an overachiever on our hands!
The year 2008 has been the most stressful one in either of our lives by a wide margin. However, this time of year is for focusing on what we are thankful for, and we have more things to be thankful for this year as well. Most importantly, we are thankful for Lexi's birth and for her continued success in overcoming some pretty serious health obstacles. However, we're also thankful to have outstanding health care benefits during these times, as well as a specific health plan which allows for unlimited lifetime coverage. We take for granted that Lexi is worth more than a million dollars to us. We're just grateful we had insurance coverage in 2008 which viewed her as more than just a Million Dollar Baby.
