I just hit my first speed bump of self-employment. Getting added onto my husband’s health insurance plan HURT!
Expectations and Results
Based on what I remembered from his health plan last year, I was expecting that it was going to cost us an extra $125 every two weeks to get me covered. Nope. I was off by nearly 100%! It will cost $235 every two weeks to get me on the same plan as him! And it’s not a very awesome plan either…
We ended up picking a cheap plan that came with a “HealthFund” that is funded by $750 from the school district every year (which is awesome in my opinion). Mr. BFS uses the $750 before paying out of pocket and any leftover funds can be rolled over indefinitely. In exchange, there are high annual deductibles and coinsurance maximums.
My Husband’s Plan / Now My Plan
- Lifetime Max Benefit – Unlimited
- Annual HealthFund Credit – $750
- Annual Deductible - $2250
- Annual Coinsurance Max – $3500
- Office Visits, Hospital Visits, Etc – We pay 25%
- Preventative Allowance – $1000
- Preventative Care – We pay 25% after the first $1000
This will run us $185 every two weeks. Then the dental runs me another $35 and the vision insurance is an additional $15. $235 total. Grrrr…
Other Options
During the next open enrollment period in October, I will be taking a closer look at my options – all of my husband’s options and private ones. I am a 28 year old in good health with enough savings for high deductibles. I think that I can find something that’ll work great for me for less than $6000 a year. So hopefully this situation is temporary.
And yes, I do know that a lot of people out there would kill for $6000 a year health insurance. I am not unthankful or ungrateful – I am just practical and want to take advantage of my current healthy circumstances.
I also just left a job that covered most of my health insurance. I was paying less than $1000 a year. So yes, I got a bit spoiled. It didn’t help that I was expecting about $3000 a year and was surprised by how wrong I was. Double grrr….
My Paycheck
In the short-term, this unexpected extra means that I will be giving myself a $1650 paycheck every two weeks instead of a $1500 paycheck. That means I better bring in at least $3575 a month and $42,900 a year. A year ago, I would have thought that was just crazy, but given the fact that I brought in about $5000 in June and about $7000 in July, I think I am being realistic. If something changes in the next few months, we will have to readjust. We’ll all find out together.
So, anybody else want to join in on griping about health insurance costs? 
I would be glad to join in the griping!!
My wife just made the decision to go part-time at her job so she can focus on her wedding photography business (which she rocks at). When she went part-time she lost her insurance, so I added her to my plan. The premium jumped 150% to add her on. I would understand if it rose 100%, that makes sense. But 1.5 times the amount that it costs me to have insurance!! Yes, I was mad too.
When my SO and I were looking at independent health insurance plans we found that it cost about twice as much to insure women than men of the same age. It’s brutal! I hope we can reform the health care system to be lower cost soon because some of this is ridiculous.
I’m very lucky to have generous benefits through work. I pay $58 every two weeks for my PPO plan, plus another $5 for dental and just under $3 for Vision.
Despite being pretty healthy, I still burn through my pre-tax medical flexible spending savings every year, though. I’m only on one daily maintenance medication and one weekly maintenance medication, too. Visits to my doctor and therapist aren’t in-network, so they only get reimbursed at 70% by my medical insurance.
This year a good chunk of the $5,000 medical flexible spending I’ve had withheld pre-tax will go for my periodontal work. The rest will go for the 30% in doctor bills not covered by my PPO, and I’ll still end up paying another $1,000 out of pocket, most likely. Good health care is expensive.
Wow, that does seem like a lot for just the two of you! We pay about 600 a month, but that is for a family of 5. At least it is pretax dollars, right??
The thing is, you will probably never even get past the deductible, will you? (Assuming you have a typical year?)
Sorry for the bad news!
Wow, this just made me realize I should quite crying about taxes in Canada. Sure we get taxed at a higher rate, but because of our subsidized healthcare, extended health plans (which basically makes sure you don’t have to pay for anything) are very cheap. As a teacher up here in Canada I pay about 60 a month for extended care, another 40 for dental, and I also get 80% of the cost of prescription drugs covered. My wife is also covered under this plan, and my kids will be too for about a 25% raise in premiums. I also have great life, and long-term disability insurance for pretty much peanuts. I guess I never really realized how much these benefits were worth relative to how expensive things are in the States. What would the teacher benefit packages down there look like?
That’s not the kind of motivation you need to achieve your earnings targets. This is a major hit to the household budget, I feel your pain.
keep us posted on the best options you find going the private route. the tricky part on employer subsidized plans is that you cannot compare/no certainty as each employer has a different arrangement, which also changes every couple years it seems. i know some who have gone the private route in the recent past.
You know, I was just talking to my godparents last night about politics, taxes and health care. They live in Canada. We both kinda agreed that their plan is easier to deal with. Yes, they get taxed more but everyone gets equal coverage. We’re all over the map with how much people are paying and costs vary wildly depending on your employement status and geograhical location.
@STRONGside, yeah, this is 4 times the amount we pay for my husband. Sorry you got hit big too.
@No Debt MBA, brutal is right!
@Linda, so expensive!
@Everyday Tips, nope, we will not use the deductible in normal years, which is why I appreciate the $750 they pay upfront.
@My University Money, that package I mention is a teacher’s package (my husband is a school librarian and gets the same insurance as the teachers).
@Hunter, thanks.
@Sunil, I will let you know. I will also let you all know if my husband misunderstood the timeframe of the charges or something like that…
@First Gen American, I don’t know which way works out better for us financially though – higher taxes or expensive health care…sucks either way, lol.
Did you look at other insurance options (searching through aggregators online)? I did a little research awhile back and found reasonable plans for about $100-$150 a month, so a pretty big discount over what it sounds like you currently have.
Obviously the benefits you get are really good, but do you take advantage (need to visit doctors regularly)?
I’m not super-experienced when it comes to health insurance, but I can imagine that cost increase hurts! There’s not much good to say about that. Maybe it’ll motivate you even more in your blogging and freelancing work?
You may want to check out the National Association of Health Underwriters: http://www.nahu.org/consumer/findagent.cfm. It seems very difficult to navigate a health insurance policy without an expert holding your hand. It can’t hurt to speak to a professional.
The problem with a government solution is that artificially lowering the price you pay doesn’t do anything to affect the cost(facilities, schooling, labor, etc.) of the care. When the allowed cost is lowered by government fiat, the available supply goes down. England has been suffering a huge brain-drain in the medical field for years, on top of long waits and arbitrary denials.
Government subsidies and price caps encourage demand while discouraging supply. That’s a system that can’t work, long-term.
I’ve also gotten spoiled regarding health insurance. As a teacher, our district covers 100% of our health plan costs including my spouse (and any kids if I had any.) I can’t imagine paying thousands of dollars a year for health care, especially for something we don’t use very often (I know this is because there’s always the chance something could happen and it’s great to know we’re covered.) I feel for you…Yuck, yuck and double yuck!
I did some research before switching jobs and I was shocked at how cheaply I can insure myself through a private plan. I looked on Esurance, and I can get an Anthem plan with a $500 deductible for about $140 a month. The coverage is actually better than what I have right now through my employer.
I stayed with my employer’s insurance for this year because there is some uncertainty about whether I’ll be eligible for benefits next year (long story). But I would definitely look into private plans – they’re super affordable if you’re young and don’t have health problems.
I have what is considered good insurance from my employer. It covers me and my husband (we do not have kids). Besides my gripe in costs (too high), and the mediocre coverage at best (it’s hard to get an appointment for some specialists, and most mental health professionals in the city do not accept that particular insurance because of their lousy reimbursement), what bothers me the most is that I can get either single coverage or family coverage, but it doesn’t consider dual coverage. My share of the premiums is almost twice as much for family coverage as it would be for individual coverage. So I’m paying the same premium as my next door colleague with 4 kids.
I’m not gripping. I paid for my own health insurance for two years and am now covered by my job an absolutely love it.
I’d suggest looking at a private plan. I get mine through ehealthinsurance and it is under $100 a month.
Ugh, insurance…can’t live with it, can’t live without it! Good luck in your new plan!
That is quite expensive. I’ve got most of my insurance paid for through my job, and it works out well so far
Wow, that’s expensive. I’ll have to take a closer look at my wife’s insurance as well to see the extra cost.
I added our baby to my insurance and it cost me about $30 extra per paycheck. We already used up annual health credit though.
The big difficulty I found when I had private insurance was that maternity coverage costs a FORTUNE…like an extra 400 bucks a month. I opted not to take that coverage, but we would have been in big trouble if I had accidentally gotten pregnant….
It’s really amazing how insurance can be really expensive but of course we can’t afford not to have one.
It’s always good to review and re-evaluate the insurance option so you can maximize the potential benefits as insurance needs change year by year.
I pay insurance with my employer and as a dependent on my husband’s insurance (I work in a different city and I have have some health issues so we decided to play it safe). We pay quite a bit as a dependent ~$400 a month. But the insurance is good.
Have you considered an HSA with a high-deductable insurance plan? This is what I plan to do in retirement.
Yikes! That is expensive insurance! I hope that it leads to better coverage.
Hey Crystal, that sucks!
Thinking about other types of insurance…..now that you work from home have you considered adjusting your car insurance to reflect that you don’t have a commute? I clasify my car as “leisure-only” and save a bundle.
Ours is a ton of moola but as a family of 5, we pay the same price as a family of 2. So the family of 2 group is really coughing up a ton of money.
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