Friday, July 2, 2010

How Much Do You Pay For Health Insurance?

group-of-doctorsFor most families, mine included, healthcare insurance is a priority. However, I have heard many people say “ I can’t afford health insurance”, but if you really think about it, how can you afford not to?

The Health Reform stated that in 2008, the average premium for a family plan purchased through an employer was $12,680 or equivalent to the the annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage job. Those costs sound very accurate if I consider premiums, deductibles, out of pocket expenses and the cost for prescriptions. Last year, my husband paid $135.00 weekly towards our medical premiums. The new 2010 healthcare reform bill is supposed to make healthcare more affordable. Imagine my shock when my husband brought home a memo stating our deductible would be increasing by more than $100.00 a week.

Needless to say, I was outraged by the increase. It’s hard enough to pay for the healthcare we desperately need. Now they want more money? When my husband told me about the changes, I immediately went online in search of quotes for group health insurance. I discovered my husband’s employer has the option to choose from several online group health plans such as HMO’s and PPO’s. We currently have a PPO which tends to be higher than an HMO plan because PPO’s allow the freedom to see any doctor without a referral. My husband notified his employer of the options available for medical group health coverage and we are waiting to find out if we can find a cheap health insurance plan.

Do you feel you overpay for health insurance? Besides opting for generic prescriptions, what ways have you found to help cut down costs?

7 comments:

  1. We are really lucky that we have an awesome employer because up until this year they paid everything for all of us and we paid nothing and it was GOOD insurance. They changed that this year and we have to pay for me and the kids but we only have to pay a very small percentage or something because it's about $30 a month for me and three kids on my husband's plan. My parents are self employed and it costs them an arm and a leg to get good health insurance!

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  2. Oh and if you get prescriptions by mail you can generally also help cut costs a little bit.

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  3. I am so glad u posted this. Health care is a huge problem. My husband and I do not have insurance,and thank goodness our kids qualify for the state's Arkids program. My husband and I both have pre-existing conditions, and he is self-employeed, and I stay at home with kids. (We made that decision because I was working for a doctor, and was only making enough money to cover child care with only about $50 left over every 2 weeks, but we also had insurance). Anyway, with him being self employeed, we only can get private insurance and we cannot afford it, plus even if we could, it would not cover the problems that we need to be seen for. We both use a doctor that is awesome, and charges us the lowest fee when we come in (less than $100 a visit) and will call in meds without being seen sometimes to help us. If it wasn't for our dr, I don't know what we would do. We also just recently found a dentist nearby that has an income-based rate system, which is great because we also were not able to afford dental visits. Something really needs to be done in our country to help people in our situation, and I know there's lots of people worse off than us. I don't totally agree with the new health care reform plans but hope they can work something better out. I guess some people don't understand why we can't afford the insurance, but we are on such a tight budget already, there's no room for anything else. We barely keep our bills caught up as is, and we have cut out most "extras" a long time ago. We rarely go out to eat, buy things we don't need, etc. My kids have everything they need and have name brand clothes (from the sale rack, lol) and are just like any other average kid, mainly because my hubby and I would rather give them what they need, and we will put ourselves to the side for them. I just really hope that one day (soon) the health care plan will allow us to find insurance that we can actually afford. I would find a way to pay a small amount to have it, but just cannot pay hundreds a month!

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  4. You know there's affordable health care out there, but the deductibles are insane. I spend nearly $160 for my own, because my employer doesn't offer it. And my deductible is $1200.00 So when I have to go for anything other than the 2 yearly appointments, I pay the full cost which can be anywhere from 80 on up.

    I truly think the only way everyone can have coverage is to make a National Health Care System like Britain and Canada. However lucky people with awesome insurance will keep that from happening.

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  5. My husband is a self employed carpenter. We pay $1264.00 a month for a family of four. (That's with a $50 co-pay!) We had a 30% increase this year. It kills me...because it is almost like paying another mortgage. Work has been slower because of the economy, and I worry that one month we won't have the money to pay it and we will be dropped.

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  6. I spend $488 per month on just me. Even though they consider me disabled and without a job, I have to wait two years to be covered by Medicare.

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  7. For my son and I, it's just over $80 a month. We also have free vision and dental. But, I also pay an extra $8 a month to have larger coverage for dental. It used to cover two yearly exams and anything else up to $500. Now, it still covers everything but up to $1500. It's worth it to me. Our doctor's copay is $30 per visit. I believe our deductable is $750/person or $1500/family. We also have an out of pocket maximum once we hit our deductable. I'm not sure what it is now with the two of us. But my hospital bill after having our son was less then $1500 and I also had to have surgery and two ER visits a couple months later. I did not owe a single penny for that.
    I feel very fortunate that I work for such a large company and that they offer great insurance. Yeah, it goes up every couple of years, but I don't get to worked up about it. I know that it could be tons higher.

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