Health Insurance Switch

I swear 444, I know how you feel. My response on Beks post was so long, I thought it deserved it's own post.

I work for a small company. I think we have 33 people covered under our health insurance plans. And our plans always renew on September 1, so I happen to have the numbers in front of me. We have a choice of the traditional PPO with a $1000 indiv/$2500 family deductible or a High Deductible ($5,000 family) Plan with a Health Savings Account.

Every September we get hit with an increase. This year was 16%. Which I had heard the average right now is about 19% so I guess that's in line.For the traditional plan, my portion of family coverage would have been $754.38 per month. My employer pays for single coverage which would have been the other $371. Yes…..that is $1,125 per month total for family coverage. Each individual has a $1,000 deductible maxing out at $2,500 for the family. We had $25 co-pays for office visits and prescriptions were either $10, 20 or $50.

I decided to switched on September 1 to the High Deductible Plan. All office visits and all prescriptions go towards the $5,000 deductible. My portion for insurance is $518.24 per month. And I’m contributing an additional $512 per month (employer pays $87 of this since they only have to pay $284 for what single coverage would be) into a Health Savings account which I can reimburse myself for ANY and ALL medical/dental expenses. I can contribute $6,150 annually to the Health Savings Account which exceeds the $5,000 I might have to pay out-of-pocket for everything else.

I ran the numbers like a million times. But I was able to remove the medical line in my monthly budget since I’ll be able to reimburse myself for all the expenses. Because of that and the taxes savings, I’m only going to bring home about $40 less per month than I would with the traditional plan. But I have the “chance” (depending on how healthy everyone is) to let that HSA account build up and be able to reimburse myself for outrageous orthodontist bills in my near future. I have a 9yr old who is going to need braces in the next year or so.

I hate it, but it is what it is.