Health Insurance for Family

[truthwolf1]

My wife has had it with her job but has a pretty good healthcare plan about $450 a month . There is a small deductible for surgeries etc.. but nothing for regular doc visits other then a $35 copay
.
Under my insurance I would be paying roughly $600-700 a month with a 2500 deductible for anything. Just checking out some outside plans and they are no better. 10,000 dollar deductable?? I mean really c'mon...

So, in essence I will have "coverage" but will never use it because it is too expensive to do so.
I am no better off then somebody without coverage unless something serious happens. Will still have to pay for every visit and most small time treatments because it will end up being cheaper then paying the deductible.

This really is a great racket from the insurance companies.

[sgreger1]

Dude wtf? A 10k deductible? And even at her current job it's $450 a month? God damn that is insane, how could anyone ever afford that? You'd be better off with an HSA, or better yet, just put $500 a month away in a savings account and by the time something major happens you can just pay cash (plus you can have it as savings in case something bad happens like loss of employment). Don't give it to these pigs if they want to charge that much. Unless your planning on having a spine surgery or something anytime soon those high-deductible policies won't do you much good.

Truly if I were you I would save the money in a seperate emergency account and then once 2014 rolls around you should be eligible for subsidies etc from Obamacare. Believe it or not the new healthcare plan will be of a big help to people like you. Seriously, save cash and wait it out to see what the landscape looks like in a few years, Obamacare will be changing things around a bit and it will probably be a better time to buy in 2014 than it is now, we'll just have to see how it all plays out, but I doubt it will be any worse than it is now. just make sure you have the cash on hand to cover anything between now and then.


I've always had great insurance everywhere i've worked so I wasn't even aware of how crazy it was out there in the non employer-provided health insurance market. I pay $180 a month for primo cadillac care for my family of 3, everything is free (minus the $25 co-pay). I can't believe they are charging people that much! Good luck broham, save that money and hope for the bes,t hopefully 2014 will somehow make it cheaper, though I am not entirely sure that it will, but it can't get much worse.

[truthwolf1]

You are very lucky sgreger1 with a plan like that but you do work for one of the big corps? if I remember correctly. So, does my wife and is why she has stuck it out as long as she has.

It is pretty ridiculous with these super high deductibles for small business and if you were to become self employed.
Just checked with HR and the 2500 I originally thought is actually 2000 per person. WOW, that is just unreal!

2014 hopefully will open some better options but I am nervous about any stipulations that if your a full time employee and your company offers HS that you will not be able to get OBAMACARE.

Healthcare up 7 percent this year
http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelp...se-7-next.html

[sgreger1]

You are very lucky sgreger1 with a plan like that but you do work for one of the big corps? if I remember correctly. So, does my wife and is why she has stuck it out as long as she has.

It is pretty ridiculous with these super high deductibles for small business and if you were to become self employed.
Just checked with HR and the 2500 I originally thought is actually 2000 per person. WOW, that is just unreal!

2014 hopefully will open some better options but I am nervous about any stipulations that if your a full time employee and your company offers HS that you will not be able to get OBAMACARE.

Healthcare up 7 percent this year
http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelp...se-7-next.html

I work for a medium sized corporation but they are really legit with their health plans here, the carrier (blue shield) increased premiums by 13% last year but my company ate it and decided not to pass the cost on to us. It's a great setup and one of the reasons I love it here, but I realize that this is not typical of most places (my wife's employer provided insurance is like 4x the price and she works for a corporation that makes several billiona year, go figure...). I have worked here for so long (since I was like 19) that I forget how expensive premiums are for people who don't have good employer provided plans. That cost barrier is waaay too high I mean I could never afford that, I would just have to take my chances.


From my understanding of Obamacare, everyone is required to have a certain standard of coverage. Companies will have to offer at least this coverage or they can opt to pay 8% to the gov which would then allow you to partake in the exchange thing. You shop for the cheapest plan (or whicever plan you want), and if you are making under I think $80k or something you qualify for some level of subsidy to make sure you can afford the minimum requirement (since you get fined if you do not have at least minimum insurance). So depending on how much you make, you will likely be eligible for subsidies to help out. In theory the extra competition from the exchange should drive down costs, but the insurance companies seem to be trying to make a political point so they may arbitrarily make things more expensive just to get everyone pissed off at Obama. It's hard to tell at this point because Obama pretty much let the insurance companies write Obamacare, so I have a feeling this will all be to their benefit in the end.

Anyways, seriously consider a health savings account and/or just saving the $500 a month (if you can afford it) by putting it into a bank account. Once 2014 rolls around you may get subsidies and be able to afford decent coverage and then you can enjoy the nice big savings fund you've accumulated between now and then by saving the $500 a month cash. That would be my best advice.

Oh, and vote for socialized healthcare. It's opposed to pretty much all of my political ideologies but one thing I do know is that it works much better than our current system. You will never see our European friends post such a disheartening thread such as this one, because they bit the bullet and did what works best. At least in a socialized system you have some level of coverage and don't have to worry about going bankrupt in the case of an emergency.


Edit: Also **** any corporation that doesn't offer decent health benefits to their workers. We are a medium sized business of perhaps 1,000 employees at best, and we are losing money or making a 3% profit margin on most years. We are not a rich company making billions, yet they take care of their employees. No deductible, $180 for your whole family, and $25 covers everything from cancer screening and CT scans to spine surgery. If my company that is struggling just to make a profit can do this than there is NO excuse for all of these larger companies that are much more profitable to deny this for their workers. Bunch of ****ing scumbags if you ask me.

[Ainkor]

I pay about $400 a month for myself and my 3 kids. If I were to add my wife, we would have to pay over $900 a month. Luckily she works for the same company and individual coverage is a nice and comfy $50 per month. $2000 total deductable for the family isn't too bad and the coverage is pretty decent (well, actually, our dental sucks monkey ass).

When 2014 hits, we will probably dropping all coverage and paying the 8%. It will be cheaper for us and the employees will get better coverage. I am also convinced that we need to get over ourselves and start universal health care.

[sgreger1]

I pay about $400 a month for myself and my 3 kids. If I were to add my wife, we would have to pay over $900 a month. Luckily she works for the same company and individual coverage is a nice and comfy $50 per month. $2000 total deductable for the family isn't too bad and the coverage is pretty decent (well, actually, our dental sucks monkey ass).

When 2014 hits, we will probably dropping all coverage and paying the 8%. It will be cheaper for us and the employees will get better coverage. I am also convinced that we need to get over ourselves and start universal health care.

This is one of the benefits of a universal healthcare system is that it alleviates the need for providing healthcare to your employees if your a business. You pay a flat and predictable 8% (whereas premium's for insurance change every year), and all your employees are covered. I think there is a serious chance OBamacare could work, though I wouldn't surprise if it made things worse. But for all my brothers on this forum paying crazy prices like this I hope it gets fixed. The problem is that the new HC bill doesn't really address costs at all so things will remain just as expensive, but at least there will be subsidies for the lower income brackets. Those who are making a decent amount like 90k a year won't be eligible though.

[Mdisch]

I'd just like to state I never have to pay for healthcare

I mean apart from being flat and boring, Denmark isn't all that bad But dental does cost quite a bit tho' - I mean I will have to pay about 800$ for getting my teeth fixed up.

[lxskllr]

I wonder if anyone's ever made a "health union". Where you pay a specific hospital/medical center, and all your health care goes through them. You cut out the for profit, insurance middleman, so the hospital gets a higher percentage of money, while charging the patient less. Hospitals will have to stay competitive, or people will take their money elsewhere. Some will get shafted due to lack of choice, but that's better than everyone getting shafted.

[RobsanX]

I wonder if anyone's ever made a "health union". Where you pay a specific hospital/medical center, and all your health care goes through them. You cut out the for profit, insurance middleman, so the hospital gets a higher percentage of money, while charging the patient less. Hospitals will have to stay competitive, or people will take their money elsewhere. Some will get shafted due to lack of choice, but that's better than everyone getting shafted.

Our insurance is a bit like that. The insurance, and clinics are all under the same umbrella. We pay around $650 for four of us.