Well certainly, I don’t know about the OP, but it defeats the purpose of a health plan to have a deductible higher than one can afford.
In my own case, I have a high-deductible plan with an HSA, but my deductible is only $2400, and then my employer chips in $1000 to my HSA at the beginning of the year to cover part of it. So my real out of pocket deductible is $1400. I can afford that.
I was in the same boat and ended up just moving out of the USA. I’d like to be able to live in my own country again (or even visit!) without going w/o insurance, but I am not sure if that will ever happen.
Overseas, it was easy to get a private policy. If your son/daughter are able to leave the US, it would be easy to get insurance.
Sateryn, I feel like I’m failing to grasp something here, or that there’s a missing piece, or something. You’re paying $256/month for a family policy with a $10,000 annual deductible. But it’s paying for $1500-$2000 worth of vision and dental that your husband’s employer’s plan wouldn’t cover if you were on that plan.
What that implies to me is that you’re meeting the deductible, because otherwise your insurance wouldn’t be paying for anything. If that’s so, you’re spending $13,000/year on health care - $10K for expenses up to the deductible, plus $3K in insurance payments. And you get probably < $1000 tax savings with the HSA, so your net cost of health care is a little over $12K. It’s hard to see how you and your family would be any worse under UHC, even if you’re doing too well to have your coverage subsidized.
It’s also hard to see how you’d be doing worse under your hubby’s policy. It costs $660/month, you say (you also say it costs >$100/month more than your high-deductible policy - shouldn’t that be >$400/month more?), which is ~8000/yr. Plus $2K for the dental/vision, plus maybe another $2K in copays, and you’re about at the same place, just arranged somewhat differently.
Maybe you’re substantially exceeding the high-deductible plan’s annual deductible, in which case if it covers every dollar over the $10K deductible, it’s starting to look pretty good. But it would also make me wonder how the premiums stay so low if your health care costs are $20K or more per year.
I’m not sure what I’m missing here, but I’m missing something. Any help?
I have yet to even use the HDCP insurance. All of our medical expenses get paid from the cash in the HSA account. The insurance is only for “catastrophic” care necessary, above the $10,000 amount. Which is fine with me, as our medical expenses are low (as I said, only vision and dental) and I prefer to have control over my medical spending.
So, $256/month for the HDCP, plus a $250 deposit into the HSA, equals $506 per month. Under hubbys’ plan, we would pay $660, plus still be paying for vision and dental out of pocket.
FWIW, we also have an AFLAC-like plan that pays cash directly to us in case of cancer diagnosis/treatment, car accidents, and any ICU care. Which is what it seems like we’re most in danger of. That’s another $80/month. For backup, we have a credit account with an interest rate of something like 7%, which is for medical expenses only. So, if there is a bad car accident, for example, we would use the money in our HSA, then put the rest up to $10,000 on the credit account, then the HDCP kicks in. The cash payments would be used to replenish the HSA and/or pay the credit account.
And, yes, I suppose it is a gamble. But that is what insurance is, for the most part, on both the consumer and corporate sides.
I hope it’s all right to mention the UK National Health system (NHS).
This covers everybody and is paid for out of taxes. There are private schemes which you can also have if you want to pay for them.
Some employers offer these private schemes (usually this means there is an associated drop in your tax deductions, since this is a ‘taxable benefit’.
Two examples of how this system works:
my parents were covered throughout their lives by the NHS. My Dad paid for this out of his taxes. Both parents got regular visits to the doctor without paying extra. They paid for some prescription medicine, until they reached age 60.
When my Mum needed emergency hospital treatment, the ambulance and subsequent operations were already covered.
I too am covered by the NHS (I don’t find the taxes onerous) and so can see a doctor when necessary.
My employer (a Private School) offers membership of a Private Health Scheme, which costs me a bit in tax deductions.
OK, that’s what I missed. I somehow read it that the HDCP was paying for your visiono/dental, and you were paying your insurance premiums from the HSA. My bad.
Not really - since you can afford to self-insure for anything up to the $10,000 mark, there’s certainly nothing irresponsible about it.
What the OP is describing seems to be a classic example of “underinsured”
It’s like people ask “Why can’t you find a job”? My answer is I have a job, I have a lot of jobs, but the fact is they keep, calling me off, only giving me 8 hours per week, or whatever. In October despite being on temp agencies and offical employees of several fast food/retail type places I only worked 37 hours last MONTH. Due to call offs, or no schedule but people forget
underemployment leads people to a situation that is just slightly less. Don’t get me wrong I’m grateful for any work as it keeps my rent paid, but nothing else, which I’m grateful for, at least I’m not in the cold but you get my point.
The problem I see is if we require health insurance, and people can’t afford DECENT coverage, they’re gonna take the minimum to keep from being fined. But the fact remains, in effect, they are uninsured.
For example, if I am uninsured and have a heart attack, it costs say, $25,000, I can’t pay and I go to the hospital get treated and declare bankruptcy.
Let’s say we have to get insurance, I’m making minimum wage and working only 40 hours a week, so I have to buy the cheapest insurance that stops me from getting fined.
So let’s say it’s $200/month. Over the course of the year I pay $2,400 and then have a heart attack for $25,000 of which my insurance pays half. So I owe $12,500 which I can’t pay and have to declare bankruptcy.
So where is the benefit to anyone? I took $2,400 out of the economy that could’ve been spent on something else, I wound up in bankruptcy anyway.
So who benefits in my above example. The insurance industry does, becaue they are getting money. The hospital does 'cause it’s only losing $12,500 instead of $25,000 and the bankruptcy attorney does as well.
Who loses? The voter who was had to buy insurance and could only afford the least coverage, and since he’s now in bankruptcy he’s going to throw in all his credit card debt as well so none of that will get paid and the cost will be passed on through fees and interest of those who use credit and pay it off.
Now I’m not saying it’s wrong or right and I admit I used a very simplistic example. And I also realize that in any scheme, no matter how good, someone is gonna fall through the cracks.
What I hope to show you is, when you pass something as important as health care, you don’t want to do it for political reasons. This way the politicians can say “Look what we gave you,” but the victory is hollow, because it’s leaving too many people falling between the cracks.
If any plan encourages people to be underinsured, it is not good.
Any insurance should exist to make it possible for you to survive the health problem and come out in an economic status that is similar to before the health problem arose
My understanding is that if you make this little, you’d qualify for subsidies for insurance, as you should. With any luck you then would not have to file for bankruptcy if you have a major illness. What is actually going to get passed may be something different.
You’re in a kind of unusual situation, since I think most people do not pay significantly more for dental and vision expenses than for medical expenses. I have a good dental plan, but even with it major expenses like braces and root canals only get covered at 50%. So, you are kind of an outlier at the moment.
Our medical expenses are low also - until my wife’s retina tore, which led to about $50K in medical expenses over the course of two years. Since we had good insurance, it didn’t cost us very much. It would cost you $20K - wipe out your HSA the first year, and perhaps wipe you out the second year.
Yes, it is gambling, but remember gambling isn’t really a gamble when large enough numbers of players are involved. Being a part of a big pool can cut your expenses in the long run because it reduces risk and does not require a big reserve tied up in a fairly unproductive investment. I hope you stay healthy, but if the worst case situation happens, I assume you are in trouble. I assume this because you consider the price of traditional insurance too high.
All of the current bills under consideration set minimum standards for coverage to qualify as “being inusred”, presumably to avoid just the problems you mentioned. This is actually the problem with the OP’s insurance plan, it may not qualify, though it appears that as long as the final bill counts money taken out of the HSA as part of the benefit, it probably will.
(sorry if you already knew this, it wasn’t clear from your post).
Which is actually another benefit of the health reform bill, currently few people with HDCP plans actually put money in their HSAs (something like 10%), hence largely missing the point of the program. The reform bill may end up more or less requiring them to put at least some minimum in the fund to qualify.
For the corporate side maybe, but the point of insurance on the consumers side is to not be gambling, but rather to trade the gamble of possibly having to pay a large financial cost in return for certainly paying a fixed low cost.
Ah, so it’s scheme, eh? :dubious: