Health Insurance

[406dn]

As a cash payer with two kids in glasses and wife getting orthodontic work we have yet to spend nearly that much in annual medical/dental costs. Now, I know things can happen, but so far we're coming out ahead.

Nearly everyone is ahead...until they aren't. I'm a 70 year old man and likely have less than 10k in medical expenses total in my life. That could all change in an instant.

Even thou I keep after it and keep my waistline in check, that does not mean I could learn my medical expenses have just shifted into hyperdrive.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Nearly everyone is ahead...until they aren't. I'm a 70 year old man and likely have less than 10k in medical expenses total in my life. That could all change in an instant.

Even thou I keep after it and keep my waistline in check, that does not mean I could learn my medical expenses have just shifted into hyperdrive.

Just a thought. Start hiding your assets. A good corporate or estate lawyer could help with that. Then start shopping for a bankruptcy lawyer to make sure you are prepared to be bullet proof in case the worst happens. Can you start some kind of sham business from home? Incorporate and then put the house in company name. That should work for protecting it. Again, just thinking out loud here. Go talk to the people with education and experience in sheltering clients against healthcare piracy. Anyway, at age seventy we don't need to be as concerned about bankruptcy wrecking our credit rating.

 

[ignorethefringes]

Nearly everyone is ahead...until they aren't. I'm a 70 year old man and likely have less than 10k in medical expenses total in my life. That could all change in an instant.

Even thou I keep after it and keep my waistline in check, that does not mean I could learn my medical expenses have just shifted into hyperdrive.

I hear you. And if I happen to follow your path I'll be ahead approximately $454K by the time I'm 70 (36 years times the lowest premium, minus $20K just because. I'm 34 years old right now). Obviously I'm not banking on that, but even just the 6 years or so I've been a cash payer means I'm ahead a fair bit.

I'm willing to pay for full coverage car insurance on both vehicles, life insurance on me and my wife, real estate insurance, etc. But this one is just too steep for me right now.

 

[406dn]

Just a thought. Start hiding your assets. A good corporate or estate lawyer could help with that. Then start shopping for a bankruptcy lawyer to make sure you are prepared to be bullet proof in case the worst happens. Can you start some kind of sham business from home? Incorporate and then put the house in company name. That should work for protecting it. Again, just thinking out loud here. Go talk to the people with education and experience in sheltering clients against healthcare piracy. Anyway, at age seventy we don't need to be as concerned about bankruptcy wrecking our credit rating.

I am fortunate to have a company paid health insurance policy in addition to medicare. We are still exploring ways to shield assets so that there is something left for kids and grandkids.

If I could see a worst case scenario coming, my gift giving would max out until there isn't anything to fight over.

 

[406dn]

I hear you. And if I happen to follow your path I'll be ahead approximately $454K by the time I'm 70 (36 years times the lowest premium, minus $20K just because. I'm 34 years old right now). Obviously I'm not banking on that, but even just the 6 years or so I've been a cash payer means I'm ahead a fair bit.

I'm willing to pay for full coverage car insurance on both vehicles, life insurance on me and my wife, real estate insurance, etc. But this one is just too steep for me right now.

Even thou I have been largely free of medical expenses, that doesn't mean our family has enjoyed the same. Our daughter had a very expensive scare when she was a child. It was a large blessing that we could go to the experts needed at the facilities needed. Long time ago now, but I suspect we reached the maximum out of pocket expense for two calendar years. I would not want to contemplate how it might of turned out if I was a cash customer. The procedure needed to figure out the problem and its solution would have crushed us, if it was not for our health insurance.

I hope you never face a similar scare.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Medicare is undoubtedly the biggest insurance scam in America. It's only encouraged not discouraged the ripping off. When I was back in Montana helping take care of Mom as she was dying of cancer, I looked at the billing invoices sent out to Medicare and her govt retirement insurance. Medicare is a blank cheque for treatment facilities. Literally. So who's getting ripped off? The taxpayers of course. But it's all shielded from sight so no one cares.

 

[MarvB]

Makes me curious what the avg everyone is paying for coverage (given that all plans are def not created even remotely equal)?

For me, family coverage (inc two kids still age qualified at ages 24 & 22) for medical+dental+vision is (my half) $991/month. 30 years ago it was 100% paid, when I retired it was down to the 50% mark above.

All my crews (linemen, system operators, electricians, meter men, etc.) were union and I, as a manager, was unrep resented. To keep from wage compression every time they gave the IBEW boys a raise, we got one too, but with a corresponding cut in benefits. It is what it is I guess

 

[Ben Lamb]

Even thou I have been largely free of medical expenses, that doesn't mean our family has enjoyed the same. Our daughter had a very expensive scare when she was a child. It was a large blessing that we could go to the experts needed at the facilities needed. Long time ago now, but I suspect we reached the maximum out of pocket expense for two calendar years. I would not want to contemplate how it might of turned out if I was a cash customer. The procedure needed to figure out the problem and its solution would have crushed us, if it was not for our health insurance.

I hope you never face a similar scare.

Yep. It's amazing how close to bankruptcy we all are when we look at medical emergencies & how the country approaches the costs. My 5 day hospital stay was over $75K with no procedures, just monitoring & a few blood tests and a shot or three of morphine. We still went $12K out of pocket for it. Healthcare in this country is an administrative & political nightmare.

 

[Deleted member 18333]

Makes me curious what the avg everyone is paying for coverage (given that all plans are def not created even remotely equal)?

For me, family coverage (inc two kids still age qualified at ages 24 & 22) for medical+dental+vision is (my half) $991/month. 30 years ago it was 100% paid, when I retired it was down to the 50% mark above.

$242/month for family med/den/vision $1,000 deductible $4,000 out-of-pocket max/person, $8,000 family.

 

[BuzzH]

Makes me curious what the avg everyone is paying for coverage (given that all plans are def not created even remotely equal)?

For me, family coverage (inc two kids still age qualified at ages 24 & 22) for medical+dental+vision is (my half) $991/month. 30 years ago it was 100% paid, when I retired it was down to the 50% mark above.

All my crews (linemen, system operators, electricians, meter men, etc.) were union and I, as a manager, was unrep resented. To keep from wage compression every time they gave the IBEW boys a raise, we got one too, but with a corresponding cut in benefits. It is what it is I guess

Right now for just myself $140/month 350 deductible max out of pocket 6k for in network, 9k out of network.

Family cost would be about $400/month.

 

[Nemont]

Comparing group premiums, to individual premiums is an apples to Tuesday comparison.

 

[npaden]

There is generally a very big difference between what "you" pay and what the actual cost of your insurance is because employers (including governments) generally kick in a big chunk of the cost.

For our company plan, the premium for an employee only with a $2,000 deductible it costs us $474.46 per month. The employee doesn't pay anything.

Employee and Family with the $2,000 deductible plan costs $1,570.95 per month. We pay $475 of it and the employee pays the rest.

Generally when it comes out of their pocket, employees opt for the $5,000 deductible plan instead. It is $1,221.78 per month for family coverage and we pay the same $475 per month.

I have no idea how, but somehow we are grandfathered into a pre-Obamacare policy. We can't make any changes or we have to go to a compliant policy and our insurance guy says we would be looking at a 50% increase in premiums minimum.

I would like to add an HSA feature to our plan, but we can't or we would lose our grandfather card somehow.

I personally use Medishare cost sharing. It isn't actually insurance. I pay $450.21 per month for family coverage with a $10,500 deductible per person. The monthly savings each year are more than the difference in the deductible amount. We've been on it for 4 years now and really only had 1 time when my wife tore her ACL skiing that we came very close to the deductible but didn't end up hitting it. They have several things that they don't cover but over the last 4 years we have saved around $38,000 in premiums. Run that down the road a few more years and we could pay a pretty big hospital bill with what we saved on insurance but the cost sharing thing actually seems to work pretty well for that.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Comparing group premiums, to individual premiums is an apples to Tuesday comparison.

Ours is $697 for 2 people. Not in a group, bronze plan with a high deductible & it's as basic as we can get.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Doesn't the premium/coverage depend a lot on age? I know some pre-medicare folks down here who are really forking out big bucks per month for medical insurance. I guess as we age we're higher risk?

 

[DouglasR]

Tell me what the American public would accept as an alternative and I will be in your corner

The freedom to attempt a dub cork rodeo at 29years and 30months of age without fear of bankruptcy.
Is that really too much to ask?

 

[Dave N]

The freedom to attempt a dub cork rodeo at 29years and 30months of age without fear of bankruptcy.
Is that really too much to ask?

 

[SAJ-99]

The freedom to attempt a dub cork rodeo at 29years and 30months of age without fear of bankruptcy.
Is that really too much to ask?

Therein lies the problem with insurance. It is limited in its ability to incent people to participate in the process of improving health. Smoking is about the only thing that they can penalize. But rodeo should probably be on that list too.

 

[RobG]

Very similar experience as my sister. Only they were able to ambulance them to the nearest children's hospital, but then stayed for 6 weeks. Where they live there's is only one option for health insurance, they had the gold plan. When they were do the hospital sent them a bill for 244k, said it was out of network and not an emergency, since they came from another hospital... they tried to negotiate but there's only payment option was 2 years. Try paying for a house in two years, on top of already paying for a house, and you weren't working for like 2 months. They threatened to take her house. It was incredible scary as our entire family came together to figure out a way to pay it (cough @mulecreek ) as family doesn't let family go broke.

Thankfully randomly they got connect to the hospital CFO through a friend of a friend. He said that's outrageous and revised the bill to 7k. How is that ok, 244k to 7k...

First Came Kidney Failure. Then There Was The $540,842 Bill For Dialysis

A personal trainer in Montana had a sudden need for lifesaving dialysis after his kidneys failed. But he and his wife never expected the huge bill they received for 14 weeks of care.

www.npr.org

 

[RobG]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.
Gonna have to sharpen my pencil and do some of that damned thinking stuff.
In my line of work my net income can drift a bit from year to year and it’s kinda alarming how much that can affect the tax credit you receive but whateves
I’ll prob end up picking up one of the policies just so that in the event of a catastrophe I can say
“I was trying to do the right thing!”

The American Rescue Plan smoothed out some of the tax credit cliffs. For picking policies I think you would be nuts not to consult with an insurance agent, even if you have to go to Glasgow. They are free and the ACA removed much of the conflict of interests they had previously.

 

[Nemont]

The American Rescue Plan smoothed out some of the tax credit cliffs. For picking policies I think you would be nuts not to consult with an insurance agent, even if you have to go to Glasgow. They are free and the ACA removed much of the conflict of interests they had previously.

To be clear, I may be cheap but I ain't "Free".