Need to learn everything I can about health insurance

Working for Lockheed Martin I knew the benefits were great. No the benefits are absolutely premo. Contract changed to another company no one's heard of and I'm getting fucked up on health insurance costs. I've taken a nice little pay cut 100% because of health insurance.
So next time enrollment rolls around I have to be able to find something cheaper and about as good.
I'm paying $1,250 a month to cigna for spouse, and kid. That's about double what I was with LM. I don't know anything about health insurance, or I probably would have seen this coming and avoided it.
I remember in 2008 my mom bitching about paying for health insurance being $1,440 to cover her and my stepdad who were both self employed for either 6 months or a year. Probably 6 months.
Thanks Obamacare.

 

Yep, health care is expensive. HMOs are usually the cheaper option vs a PPO. But you have to use in network doctors, hospitals and pre-approval plus referals from primary care physician (PCP) to see a specialist. Some employers offer both options at open enrollment.

I have watched my premium go up from 500 a month to 1600 a month over the past 6 years. Plus co-pays and co-insurance increases as well.

If however you and your family are generally healthy they might have a High dedectible plan that will save you about 30-50 percent but if you get really sick .. you are going to be shucking out thousands before the insurance kicks in.

You do go to the meetings during open enrollment period to discuss available options don't you? They really are worth it to attend so you aren't too surprised. Anyway, just make sure you are aware that health care costs are typically going up 5 - 20 percent per year even if they stay with the same company.
The days of corporations self insuring are gone .. they've outsourced to the lowest cost provider to maximize profit.

This year my insurances are going to cost me 3k more than they did last year.

 

As far as I know there weren't any meetings, the change over was pretty sloppy.
Well that's good to know. I'll look out for in-network everything, Dr referrals for everything and the thousands out of pocket before insurance kicks in, sounds kindof like health insurance my wife would get from her work at the hospital.
I thought Obamacare was supposed to do away with most if not all of that.
Well that probably doubled what I knew about health insurance.
Only thing I was well versed in was insurance costs going up every year faster than my pay, which was the story at my last job.
I drew a chart that showed the 2014-2017 insurance premium increases compared to 2013-2017 raises if continued in 20 years I would be taking home efffectly $0.
That pissed a lot of people off. Then next year it didn't go up any and the year after was less than 1%. All that did was kick the can down the road several years.

 

I thank GOD that I'm on Medicare now! It's not perfect but I don't have to worry about huge monthly premiums for crappy coverage.

 

When I started my worklife back last century, my HC/dental/optical has gone from 20 bucks a month to where it is at now at 1700 so yeah, way way more than inflation.
Now you need to take job with a different employer at a higher pay rate to keep up with inflation.

 

On an advantage plan or did you go with A,B plus the supplementals?
I've seen that initially advantage is a huge cost savings especially if you are healthy but if you are on the advantage plan .. as the plan ages more members are sicker and the co-pays start going up and add-ons spiffs like dental/optical start decreasing. And of course .. pre approvals and referrals with the advantage plan (like a HMO) vs the Supplementals (PPO .. any doc, anytime, anywhere)

I'm in the quandry in the coming decade .. which to go with medicare supplemental or advantage plan. Once you go on an advantage plan and after a few years when the copays/deductable start killing your savings .. switching to supplementals is damn near impossible without moving to a different state where your current provider doesn't offer coverage.

 

Just A, B and D. Most financial advisors don't recommend the advantage plans for the reasons that you listed, and I followed their advice.

 

5 months till i can get medicade. self emp. so cheapest aca was 1869. a month. i make about 580 ,,,, and i put that in there.
if you are at all remote or even if your not get guardianflight. abcessed diverticulitis got me and i signed up last miniute,,,,,i was on the gurny being loaded into helo. helo bill came in at 69,000.00 for 45 min helo. i paid 175.00 sign up and 125 a year. they paid for the helo. 69k would have bankrupted me. remains to be seen if the 35k for 3 days of iv antibiotics will.
get the guardianflight if avail in your area

 

Yeah, Obamacare being mandatory sucked. There are still people buying policies through the "Marketplace" though, so those people either get "rebates" or "penalties" through their tax returns. And if they had the Marketplace insurance and didn't provide the Form 1095-A with their tax info the whole thing rejects when we go to e-file it. So we have to go back and ask for the form they should have provided in the first place, and then their return changes, up or down, but it definitely changes, so we have to do the whole thing over again.

I hate that whole "Affordable" Care Act crap with a passion. It never made anything more affordable. It just moved who was paying around.