Choosing no insurance or what is another option

[finny1981]

Let me say that it is not a family amount we are talking about, it is DH only. To add him to my employer plan we would be paying over $600 a month more just to move to a two person plan. When I try to get him insurance through the marketplace it asks if he is eligible to be insured under a spouses plan, the second I click yes it says he is not eligible for a subsidy. So I am sure financially we would qualify, but that disqualifies us right there. For us it is not eating or insurance, but it is coming close and what I was saying is that it is hard to justify paying that money monthly for something that we will not have enough disposable income after we pay the premium to go to the doctor when we are sick. The deductible on my plan pretty much means we pay everything out of pocket and so I just do not go to the dr. I am not looking for empathy just information if anyone has a better way that's all. I just hate being forced to buy insurance I can't even use that's all.

 

[eliza61]

If I have to choose between a roof over my family's head/food on the table or paying for health insurance, which one do you think is more important?

That is the choice some people are having to make.

Poor and working people have been making these choices for ages.

That's what I find so hypocritical about all this "outrage". when paying for healthcare only affect the poor, nobody had a problem with it. I have actually seen post on this boards that said some thing to the affect of "they should get better jobs".

well now the problem has grown to effect everyone (which experts have been predicting since the 1970's) and now it's a problem???

Why wasn't it a problem back in the 80's, 90's and 2000"s???

Now I have insurance through my employer. I have been working for 30 years, my health care cost has risen EVERY SINGLE YEAR. I have never, ever had one year where my healthcare cost did not increase at least 5%. some years I got raises to cover it, most years I did not get enough.

my dh battled leukemia and even with first rate health care we had tens of thousands of dollars in bills.

The bottom line IMO is that this country is focused on passing the buck... how can I not pay high prices but no one is trying to figure out why the prices are growing at exponential rates in the first place.
Why in the early 1990's did it cost 5500 to give birth yet today it cost 30,000 for the same no complicated normal birth?

 

[danygirl]

If I had a high deductible policy I would get an Aflac policy or two. Love that Aflac, it saved us when DH got injured

 

[wendow]

Do you get a discount through your health insurance? My ds needed a scan of his kidneys and blood work and even though the deductible wasn't met we only paid 20% of the cost OOP, which was nice. That is pretty much standard unless out of network where we pay 30%.

I don't think so. My dd's scoliosis check-up was $150'ish and my dh's sick visit was $78 plus cost of antibiotics. I don't find those cost unreasonable but not sure if they are a discounted cost.

 

[wendow]

When I try to get him insurance through the marketplace it asks if he is eligible to be insured under a spouses plan, the second I click yes it says he is not eligible for a subsidy. So I am sure financially we would qualify, but that disqualifies us right there.

Exactly! This is what I can't figure out. We qualify based on income but then we do not qualify since my dh's employer offers a plan. Nobody asks if the plan is good or not or how much it costs per month...just nope, you have *a* plan offered so you don't qualify

 

[southlakejr]

Keep looking around. The exchange is not the only place to find individual plan insurance. I just ran some incredibly quick numbers with priority health- which has plans in Michigan. Coverage for a non smoking, 55 year old male start at around 300 a month. 340 a month gets you a plan with 4 covered visits a year and a not-god-awful deductible of 3900. (I know that isn't great, but it is much better than some of the others)

I know that health insurance is expensive, and then you still have an expensive deductible, and services. But please, please, please do not go without it unless it is absolutely unavoidable. This last summer, as an incredibly healthy 28 year old who had never been sick, my insurance saved us from financial ruin. I was diagnosed with a DVT and pulmonary embolism. The total for just the 6 day hospital stay was almost 400k. That isn't even including the aftercare, a follow up surgical procedure I had last week, etc. I hit my out of pocket max at 5K, which is still going to take some time to pay off. But without it, we would have declared bankruptcy before I was even discharged from the hospital because even selling the house wouldn't have touched that balance.

Keep shopping. Try the large insurance carriers directly, and look at some of the smaller ones.

 

[Marionnette]

I'm surprised at the ones that are "more then a mortgage payment" (unless you have much smaller mortgage payments) because I looked at putting DH on a marketplace account (with the spousal surcharge having him on my insurance is over 300 a month) and found some options that were not to bad. a bit over a hundred a month. Granted he is young and healthy.

We are waiting to see what his work options are like. Unfortunately he didn't get any of the info during open enrollment last year so we have to wait until he has lost his insurance through me (on the first) to apply through them.

My premiums are over $2000/month for 3 adults. We don't qualify for a subsidy under the ACA. What do you consider to be a "smaller mortgage payment"? Because I think that exceeds most mortgages. But maybe you think $400K homes are the norm?

 

[gracie1]

My premiums are over $2000/month for 3 adults. We don't qualify for a subsidy under the ACA. What do you consider to be a "smaller mortgage payment"? Because I think that exceeds most mortgages. But maybe you think $400K homes are the norm?

Wow! That is outrageous. Definitely more than my mortgage payment

 

[Krischaser]

Nugov where did you find those numbers. Right now I am looking at Health Plus and My Priority. Both have high deductibles and cost 800 +. When you are a daily of five (which includes three growing boys) that payment is very high for us. I believe it may be time to look for new jobs when my youngest is in school full time. The job I have now makes us take a unpaid lunch hour and others I've talked to in the industry are paid more. The whole thing is fustrating and I have rewritten our budget numerous times

 

[nugov2]

Nugov where did you find those numbers. Right now I am looking at Health Plus and My Priority. Both have high deductibles and cost 800 +. When you are a daily of five (which includes three growing boys) that payment is very high for us. I believe it may be time to look for new jobs when my youngest is in school full time. The job I have now makes us take a unpaid lunch hour and others I've talked to in the industry are paid more. The whole thing is fustrating and I have rewritten our budget numerous times

Just on our state page for health insurance. I will admit that I don't need it so I just filled out the preliminary questions and it gave me different plans I could enroll in. They were BCBS plans. Don't get me wrong $800 is a lot to pay, but as I said that was at our income level the $50,000 income it was a lot less, but still a very high deductible.

Like I said before the biggest surprise to me is the no discount for the plans. I thought that was the biggest thing insurance did for you was provide you with a discount . We have a 2500 family deductible, but before we reach it will pay only 20% of the bill if it is in network. To pay that much and still be paying the majority of the bill is crazy. I'd still be going to the Dr. but I would be making low payments each month until they were paid if my bills were that high from seeing them. I am not 100%, but as long as you are making payments I don't think they can do anything.