What are your health insurance premiums and how do you buy your insurance?

[kerry]

I'm 59 and recently wondered if it was possible for me to retire before age 65 so I looked up the health insurance premiums for the plans offered by my pension plans for pre-65 yrs old health insurance. We have an 18 yr old daughter.
The costs for a family ranged from $2318 -$1839 per month depending on the option you choose and the level of deductible in the plan. The cheapest plan has a $5000 deductible per person per year for instance. For just my wife and I the plans ranged from $1632-1314. Some of the plans only cover care in a limited geographical area, except for emergencies. The limit on coverage on all the plans is $2.5 million.
I'm currently paying $1413 thru my employer for a plan with what I consider very high co-pays. For instance, our co-pay is $600 per day for a hospital visit with a maximum ofr $1200 per visit. It's $35 to visit the doctor $200 for an ER and $60 for urgent care.
These numbers don't include any employer subsidy. They're the raw numbers for what the insurance plan costs.
I know I'm a frugal guy, but those figures seem outrageous to me. One month of health insurance is higher than the yearly property taxes on our home. So, I'm curious as to what others are paying and how you purchase it. Do you get your health insurance thru your employment? How much is it? If you don't get it thru your employment, how have you gone about purchasing it?

[rscurtis]

Be thankful for small favors. Where I came from (Long Island) it's not uncommon for property taxes to equal HI premiums

[elchivito]

I can get insurance for myself through my state retirement system for around 600 a month. If I add my wife and son, who is 19, the price skyrockets for some reason. Both are younger and healthier than I am.
I switched my coverage to my wife's policy with her employer as it was quite a bit less expensive. If she should lose her job I can go back onto retirement system coverage any time under a "qualifying event" definition and not have to wait till open enrollment. We have the second lowest tier policy for all three of us. It has decent 80/20 coverage, 25/75 dollar charges for office visits and emergency room, and maximum 40 dollar prescription copays. Max out of pocket is 5K per person on hospitalization.The only script I routinely take is 5 dollars.
I don't know exactly how it all breaks down but we have HI for the three of us, dental for the three of us, vision for my wife and me and a few other odds and ends like accidental death and dismemberment coverage etc. and the whole shooting match is a tick over 400 a month.
Some of this cost is offset by a benefit that my school district pays retirees until they reach medicare age. I get a quarterly check for 480 dollars, nominally to offset the cost of insurance but I'm free to use it as I see fit. There always seems to be a gun I want or good deals on whiskey right around the time that check arrives.

[tbomachines]

For individual plans, I am anywhere from $60-300 a month depending on coverage. I am shopping around for insurance at the moment and will need to grab something within the next week or two so this thread is high on my interests. At the moment I work at a major health insurer, where my premium is covered 100% but the coverage sucks (I have nothing to do with claims or benefits or anything, I'm an email system admin). Thankfully I am leaving the company and the industry as of Thursday...good riddance. Still need to have HI though. Kerry those premiums seem very high to me but I don't have a family to cover so idk....

I am 25, healthy, no preexisting conditions. I don't think my situation is applicable to most on this forum but figured I'd throw it in anyways.

[spdrun]

If you plan to do some business after retirement, have you looked at Freelancers' Union and their insurance?

[kerry]

Our daughter is currently studying in Canada (BC) and is eligible for the regular Canadian health care system since she is a dual citizen. Her cost is $64 a month as a student. Not sure what the non-student rate is. I think less than $150 per month.

[spdrun]

Originally Posted by kerry

Our daughter is currently studying in Canada (BC) and is eligible for the regular Canadian health care system since she is a dual citizen. Her cost is $64 a month as a student. Not sure what the non-student rate is. I think less than $150 per month.

Are you a dual citizen? Move back up there - better than the Yank Septic Tank in many ways.

[barry12345]

Originally Posted by kerry

Our daughter is currently studying in Canada (BC) and is eligible for the regular Canadian health care system since she is a dual citizen. Her cost is $64 a month as a student. Not sure what the non-student rate is. I think less than $150 per month.

For the age group your daughters premiums probably more than cover her actual usage. I even suspect a probable profit. She will have absolutly no copays or exclusions from any treatment if needed.

I just included this to indicate that the premium that is being paid for Kerrys daughter as a foreign national is all inclusive basically. In a way there should be no charge at all as she has to pay the sales taxes while living here. They were the intended funding medium of the so called universal health care plan.

Average about 15 percent on almost all things you purchase with the exception of non prepared food, housing, and prescriptions basically. If you do not make a reasonable income part of that is refunded several times a year. I do not know how many times.

My personal belief is that this is in place to prevent americans just crossing the border and registering for treatment on the spur of the moment. At the same time there might be some scams as there is no photo ID on our health cards. Providers basically want your number for billing is about it.

If an american got my card and used it with any provider that did not really know him it would probably work in my opinion. It suprised me that there is no photo id on the card.

[kerry]

Originally Posted by barry12345

For the age group your daughters premiums probably more than cover her actual usage. I even suspect a probable profit. She will have absolutly no copays or exclusions from any treatment if needed.

I just included this to indicate that the premium that is being paid for Kerrys daughter as a foreign national is all inclusive basically. In a way there should be no charge at all as she has to pay the sales taxes while living here. They were the intended funding medium of the so called universal health care plan.

Average about 15 percent on almost all things you purchase with the exception of non prepared food, housing, and prescriptions basically. If you do not make a reasonable income part of that is refunded several times a year. I do not know how many times.

My personal belief is that this is in place to prevent americans just crossing the border and registering for treatment on the spur of the moment. At the same time there might be some scams as there is no photo ID on our health cards. Providers basically want your number for billing is about it.

If an american got my card and used it with any provider that did not really know him it would probably work in my opinion. It suprised me that there is no photo id on the card.

I'm not following something in your post. My daughter is a Canadian. She's paying the standard price that BC students pay. Do you pay a monthly premium at all in NS? Is anything deducted from your paycheck?

[barry12345]

Originally Posted by kerry

I'm not following something in your post. My daughter is a Canadian. She's paying the standard price that BC students pay. Do you pay a monthly premium at all in NS? Is anything deducted from your paycheck?

There is some varience from province to province obviously. I just was not aware of it. If I make a million a year still no monthly premium charge would occur. No nova scotian pays a dime directly. Premium wise, deductable or co pays. Except on prescription drugs where applicable.

Nor in any other maritime province to the best of my awareness. I unfortunatly assumed that was in effect across the country. Assuming is almost always dangerous, For example that your daughter was a foreign national because she was paying a premium. Kind of a suprise to me as well for any canadian citizen to pay a monthly premium.

So it is also obvious that all canadians do not have a direct cost free system. I wonder if the sales tax is lesser in British Columbia to compensate? The central government gives control of the health care and required funding to each province to directly run.

Certain deductables and co pays quoted in the states really disturb me. Many sound all too close to the total charges levied. For example the last time I took notice a hospital bed was billed to the system at around six hundred a day here in Nova Scotia. It is play money though as all hosptials are provincially owned. A simple methology to enable controls and planning. You have to have some means of keeping track of efficiency and other factors. Even when there is no profit motive.

We have to control medical costs in Canada without cheating the health care proffessionals out of comparable incomes to the states. Your surgeons may or may not be overpaid in comparison to ours. Our general practicioners do equally as well as yours or perhaps a little better.

I am the last guy to be down on the free enterprise situation in general. It just has no place in the health care arena. The abuse and games in the states are just all too obvious. If it was run in an honest fashion I would feel otherwise.

British columbia may be playing a game as well since they have premiums it seems. You do not need them in addition to the general funding supplied by the central government if you have an efficient operating methology. It may also be a plain and simple money grab by that province if they are efficient.

All the powers that be are trying to implement more and more costs on the locals in our region as time moves forward too. They see it done in many places and attempt the copy cat approach. Eventually it has to ruin a still semi good thing. The average citizen has no real input to prevent it.

Right at this time the efficiency of the medical service locally is always getting better and better. This they found is the best way to keep costs down. The system is the most streamlined it has ever been if you have a problem of any consequence.

I get my yearly check up for the cancer I had twelve years ago this week. My uroligist works several operating rooms simultainiously. There is no wait by him for the staff to clean the equipment or operating room. He just shifts to another operating table in another room that the cleaning of the equipment from the last patient in there was already done.

Same theory as a dentist with multipal chairs. Still when he is working on me we talk and there is no sense of rushing. At the same time I know his daily workload processed is very high numerically.

I think why guys like him are not burning out is all or most the perifial functions american uroligists would be faced with that consume time and give frustation to them are absent. The lack of this enables my doctors focus on patients to be absolute.

If you reside in a place like Toronto where the rapid continious imigration is and has outstriped the medical infustructure. There are going to be delays of all sorts and many problems with the service providers. Other than for serious issues that need care now. The politicians might be wise to reduce immigration levels until the infastructure can catch up. This has to be balanced against the need in Canada for a lot more people is the other issue. The aging of the general existing population is too pronounced without the immigration. We are tending to become too top heavy with older people as breeding continiously declines.

[rs899]

I happen to be considering retirement, and have similar numbers as Kerry, perhaps a bit better.

I am 58, looking to retire at 60 ( or may be forced out sooner due to sequestration)

I have 2 options

Premiums from my employer will be $1139/month for me, wife and kid. That is with a $500/head deductible, lifetime max $5M.

An alternate, cheaper plan is $669/mo, with a $2000/head deductible. My employer contributes quite a bit to these plans, and I have 32 years which discounts my plans to the max.

Having to shell out $15K/yr for health insurance is really what's keeping me working, at this point. I need to run out the clock and get closer to Medicare. If I was sure I wasn't going to need HI I would be long gone....

We need a system like Canada's. It's obvious that when you can get an MRI scheduled in a day that we have too many resources in our system that are underutilized.

Oh, and we need to cut the insurance companies out of the equation. They have no business making decisions on our lives based on their profitability.

[kerry]

Not a dual citizen.

[spdrun]

Originally Posted by kerry

Not a dual citizen.

Sell everything and expatriate to a country that's not a c untery.

[Hatterasguy]

I'm 27 and I'm paying $235 a month for a 5k deductible plan, which really doesn't cover a whole lot. Also it seems to go up 10%-20% a year.

[rscurtis]

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

I'm 27 and I'm paying $235 a month for a 5k deductible plan, which really doesn't cover a whole lot. Also it seems to go up 10%-20% a year.

If you consider yourself in good health and avoid doing stupid things (which looks to be the case), save that money and bank it in case you need it. I'm almost 40 years older than you and have never needed any of the HI I've paid for over the years.