Going to the poor house:2015 Inusrance premiums

[lvillotta1]

So our 2015 benefit guide just came out. I have BCBS PPO. I know working PT and needing a family plan is expensive. I am paying $560/month!!!! I am sure to many this is cheap,but health care reform is here to stay. My family deductible is $3,0000. 80/20 max $9,000. Hopefully we will not need to use it this next year. How about everyone else?

 

[DVCcurious]

Ours is pretty bad, too. I feel like I was lied to. I thought he was different. Boy was I a sucker.

I hope in 2017 when he's gone they'll make changes to fix this thing.

 

[Marionnette]

So our 2015 benefit guide just came out. I have BCBS PPO. I know working PT and needing a family plan is expensive. I am paying $560/month!!!! I am sure to many this is cheap,but health care reform is here to stay. My family deductible is $3,0000. 80/20 max $9,000. Hopefully we will not need to use it this next year. How about everyone else?

We're hoping to keep it under $2K/month for a family of 3 (the older kids are now under their own plans). Aetna just informed us that the plan we currently have can no longer be offered under the rules of the ACA.

 

[crisi]

Ours has been going down under the ACA - I had expensive and crappy insurance before - through various employers who subsidized the expensive and crappy insurance. Now I have high deductibles (which I had before - I love my HDHC plan), for less money than when I was employer subsidized, paying out of pocket, with no government subsidy.

 

[wiscbugs]

So our 2015 benefit guide just came out. I have BCBS PPO. I know working PT and needing a family plan is expensive. I am paying $560/month!!!! I am sure to many this is cheap,but health care reform is here to stay. My family deductible is $3,0000. 80/20 max $9,000. Hopefully we will not need to use it this next year. How about everyone else?

$560 per month for a family PPO plan isn't bad....i'm not sure what you are complaining about. If it were a high deductible plan, I would agree it is expensive. But for a PPO that probably costs about $25k per year, $560 per month (pretax) is pretty cheap.

 

[kkwis2]

We have a lower monthly premium, but our family deductible is $6000. Yep, $6000 out of pocket before they pay anything at all.

The whole medical/insurance arena is such a scam. I recently had to get one blood test. It took about 2 minutes, a simple blood draw then one test on it, no visit with a doc. Cost was nearly $300. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[msd1776]

I am so sorry. Make sure to go and vote although damage has already been done.

 

[superme80]

If we hadn't already signed up for no cost Medi-Cal for my family it would have been $1200 out of pocket for my family. We only make $30,000 a year so that is not something we can afford to pay. And the deductible would have been $1500 per person! I know DH's company is trying to be nice by offering insurance but holy cow is it expensive!

 

[aclov]

Alot of companies are moving to high deductibles and next year we are doing spousal carve-out so if your spouse has coverage with their employer they cannot be covered. We also added more tiers if employees have more than 3 children they will pay more. There are so many fees and penalties now with the ACA that changes have to made to make up that money.

 

[lauradis]

Oh joy we are starting the ACA insurance thing again

So far this year thank goodness my insurance has made a nice profit off our family.

They haven't paid one penny in claims yet.

Hopefully our luck will cont. till renewal in may of 2015.

January is physical annual appointment time for us. that should make them pay less then 7% in cost of the premiums paid in, max.

Which will give them a nice profit of $26,040 from us.

Oh well im hoping for the same crappy insurance I presently have 4k dec HSA, with poilcy under 30k a year.

 

[barkley]

So our 2015 benefit guide just came out. I have BCBS PPO. I know working PT and needing a family plan is expensive. I am paying $560/month!!!! I am sure to many this is cheap,but health care reform is here to stay. My family deductible is $3,0000. 80/20 max $9,000. Hopefully we will not need to use it this next year. How about everyone else?

op I feel for you-but mine is over 2x that-and when you consider that it only serves as a Medicare supplement for dh and I (so it ends up paying next to nothing with the exception of scrips) it's a heck of a lot for to keep our 2 kids insured.

the aca has raised our rates horrendously, and b/c of the way the law was written we qualify for no subsidies (so long as an employer gets the insurance company to claim that the retiree portion is under the % caps they can make the total premium whatever they want-in my case over 60% of my entire pension not counting deductibles and co-pays). yup, I know-"I should be happy my former employer offers retiree healthcare at all", but on the flip side-I/my fellow retirees negotiated lower pay scales for decades with the expressed understanding that our retiree healthcare premiums would be held at active employee rates (not the case in any way, shape or form now)

 

[havaneselover]

Lots of winners and losers with ACA. My rates didn't change this year but my male coworkers' went through the roof.

I pay $200/month for a high deductible plan but it will be $600 if/when I add my children.

The biggest issue I saw this year was how time consuming this has become for small employers. For example, to get a waiver for pediatric dental (which adds almost $300/year to a family plan) everyone had to fill out a form proving we had dental.

I can't imagine how much work has been created for the irs for those getting subsidies. And how the people who have to repay some or all of the subsidies will respond.

Sorry but for most healthcare did not become affordable. It's a terrible law and I'm not even willing to concede that it was well intentioned.

 

[Poohbear5]

Our premium is up by 30%, our deductible is up by $6,000 (previously had $25 co-pay).

 

[scard192]

So our 2015 benefit guide just came out. I have BCBS PPO. I know working PT and needing a family plan is expensive. I am paying $560/month!!!! I am sure to many this is cheap,but health care reform is here to stay. My family deductible is $3,0000. 80/20 max $9,000. Hopefully we will not need to use it this next year. How about everyone else?

at my company the rates are a lot higher if you are part time worker. I am full time and my family deductible is $2350. We have BCBS PPO too. Last year they took away the co pays so we have to pay OOP for every visit (except physicals) until we reach the deductible

By taking part in our healh and wellness program, Vitality we do have the opportunity to earn points that lower our premiums, I made it to the top level and save $50/month; not a lot but something.

 

[danygirl]

Our rates stayed the same but they introduced a new "wellness plan" with stuff penalties if you don't welcome the intrusion of a nurse case manager who has never met you or your doctor or seen your medical records. Said case manager will now mandate things you must do or you pay . Apparently this wonderful program is part of obamacare and the penalties can be 50% if your premium

On the other hand DH co still pays us not to use his plan. But we might switch to his because their "wellness" plan is more carrot than stick

 

[McKelly]

Ours is $640.00 per month for a PPO-family of four. $3000.00 per person/$12,0000.00 family deductible. That's an employer plan. I complained and complained about it, but I ran into a serious medical problem this year, and I am GLAD I have it. Whew! It's one of those things.....darned if you do, darned if you don't.

I agree with kkwis2 about the cost of medical care. I go see a nurse, frequently, for a blood test. It's a finger prick, not an actual blood draw. I am in and out of there in less than two minutes. $174.00 EVERY time I go in. Really??

 

[IamGroot]

Wow insurance is crazy. I didn't know if mine was expensive or cheap, but looks cheap. I legit pay $40/mo for a full coverage HSA with a yearly deductible of $1500, so after I pay $1500 everything is free. And we get $750 from our employer to help cover the deductible.

Maybe I need to write my benefits team a thank you letter...

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

We have an HSA acct. We get to set what amt we want to pay for the monthly premium and next year we are paying $100 a month for 2 people and have an out of pocket deductible of $6450.

We have had our plan for 5 years and very rarely go to the doctor so we have just over $8,000 in the Health Savings Acct.

If you employer offers such a plan it is so worth it. Every penny we pay for our premium goes into a savings acct that we own and can be used for the deductible, RX payments. At the end of the year if we don't use any money we keep it and it rolls into next year. Unlike a traditional plan where you have to pay a premium of several hundred $$ and never see that money again.

My MIL on the other hand has the Obama care and pays $1200 a month just for herself not her husband! The woman has a whole host of aliments thyroid, stomach issues & migraines ect. that led to the high premium.

 

[eliza61]

Our rates stayed the same but they introduced a new "wellness plan" with stuff penalties if you don't welcome the intrusion of a nurse case manager who has never met you or your doctor or seen your medical records. Said case manager will now mandate things you must do or you pay . Apparently this wonderful program is part of obamacare and the penalties can be 50% if your premium

On the other hand DH co still pays us not to use his plan. But we might switch to his because their "wellness" plan is more carrot than stick

Personally I love our "wellness plan". Yep I get discounts for living a healthier lifestyle.
I have no problem with the intrusion because it's very general stuff such as monitoring, baseline testing etc etc. and my company pays for you to get the testing and/or you can use the company they bring on site during benefits.

As far as some unknown doctor seeing my records? Well considering I just moved and have to find a new doctor, there is always some one "unknown" accessing my records. Personally I more worried about all the serious financial data breaches and identity theft than I am worried about some doctor selling my knee surgery records on ebay. Just my concerns, not saying you.

the supposedly "mandated things".
lose weight if your obese
stop smoking.
Yep I totally admit, you want to kill yourself with cancer sticks you should have to pay a higher premium.

I get a 1200 dollar reduction in my medical premiums for easy stuff like keeping my blood pressure down, my cholesterol within normal ranges, and living a healthy lifestyle.

Now I'm also one of those people who are close to retirement so the ACA will be a huge benefit when I retire. my kids right now are still on my plan but we've looked into it for my oldest because he's be 26 in a few years and no longer eligible for coverage under my plan. He's a plumbers apprentice and his plumber offers NO BENEFITS and the unions benefits once he's eligible to join are sky high. Since he's pretty healthy he can get a decent plan relatively inexpensive.

We just started our benefits enrollment so I have to see how much of an increase we have

 

[IamGroot]

We have an HSA acct. We get to set what amt we want to pay for the monthly premium and next year we are paying $100 a month for 2 people and have an out of pocket deductible of $6450.

We have had our plan for 5 years and very rarely go to the doctor so we have just over $8,000 in the Health Savings Acct.

If you employer offers such a plan it is so worth it. Every penny we pay for our premium goes into a savings acct that we own and can be used for the deductible, RX payments. At the end of the year if we don't use any money we keep it and it rolls into next year. Unlike a traditional plan where you have to pay a premium of several hundred $$ and never see that money again.

My MIL on the other hand has the Obama care and pays $1200 a month just for herself not her husband! The woman has a whole host of aliments thyroid, stomach issues & migraines ect. that led to the high premium.

Just because you didn't mention it, did you know that you can invest your HSA funds over a $2k balance? It's like a mini bonus 401k, plus you can contribute up to $4500 (I think, can't recall exact number) tax free into the account.