how much do you pay for health insurance?

[sasywtch]

This is an oldie
I work for the State of CA, have Kaiser and pay $100 a month, $15 doctor visits, $15 name brand prescription, $5 generic. No deductable, $50 ER fee, if you are admitted, turns into no fee. No fee for labs, xrays, MRI's, prevention screenings, etc. $15 fee for psychiatry (went for ADHD testing last week).

Dental-Delta $27 a month, $50 deductable $2000 max a year (which I don't like). Free cleanings, free xrays, fillings.

Vision-zero out of check, free yearly screening, pair of glasses like 30? I don't use them for glasses.

 

[iwrbnd]

Family of 6 here and we pay $900/month with $2,000 deductable per person or $6,000 for the family. (Blue Cross/Blue Shield)

 

[Amandaj0831]

I pay 220 a month for myself and 2 children. We pay 25 doc visit and 1500 deductible. My employer pays up to 275 so the total cost would be 220 plus 275 I guess. And we have Blue Cross PPO. There is no dental or vision available either at my job.

 

[SamSam]

Self-employed here. Our insurance kept going up, up, up, so we went with an HSA. We still pay $650 a month, $2,500(per person) deductible, no dental, no vision. Basically we pay everything out of pocket up to the $2,500 deductible.

 

[SereneOne]

We pay 205 every two weeks, BCBS PPO. This Jan, it was raised $40 every two weeks, so before that 165. Our copays changed from 20 and 25 to 25 for office visit and 40 for specialists. ER visits went from 100 to 150. It was 1500 per person deductible but no more than 3000 a year, to 2500 per person but no more than 5000 a year.

Dental is 100 a month, we do not have it. Vision is around 10 every two weeks.


That is for the three of us, my husband, myself and our daughter. Our daughter has multiple physical birth defects and because she recieves a small amount of SSI/Disability, she has Medicaid as secondary insurance. Thank God or we would be homeless. Just her tubefeeding supplies and Pediasure run just over 1500 a month and I know the year she had heart surgery and reconstructive bowel surgery, the copays of those bills would have been my husbands pay for the entire year!

 

[iheartdisney]

My husband pays with his life...active duty military.
BTW- I don't know why everyone is so keen to get in on governemnt managed hearthcare...it took me almost two months to get an MRI. My daughter has to wait until June to see an opthamologist, and we scheduled the appointment in March.

 

[Carl Fredricksen]

I am feeling very thankful...
thru my employer we pay:
$225 per month for health insurance (physicians plus hmo)
-no deductable, $20 co-pay for office visits, $10/$25 co-pay for rx
$39 per month for dental (delta dental)
That is for our family DH, DSS, DS and me.

We are very lucky as well. I work for a hospital, so we pay about $260 a month for medical and dental for DW, DD, DS and myself. The dental is pretty run of the mill, but our medical has $20 copay, $10 prescriptions, and we have no deductible as long as we use a hospital in my employers network. We have 6 major hospitals in the area, so we have choices. I am sure I don't make as much money as others, but the health insurance is like adding cash to the paycheck IMO. One of the big reasons I am so happy with my job.

I also know that even though my employer is self-insured, the foot the bill for an additional 14k per year on top of my premiums.

 

[2manypets]

We pay close to $500 per month for family coverage, with $20 co-pay for PCP and $40 for specialist. Our deductable for the family is $2500 per year. All in all not nearly as bad as others. I can't imagine having a $11,000 deductable. In one year, I had 3 surgeries trying to fix my shoulder. The total bill for all three was $250,000! My cost was the $2500. It's the prescriptions that get us though. I have to pay $250 a month OOP for my BP meds.

 

[auralia]

as much as i hate tricare and how hard it is to find a doctor to accept it at least it is cheap, even if i go down to standard to have more choice in doctors my only oop is 300 deductable per family and cap of 1000 after i pay 300 they pay 80% until i've paid 1000 and then everything is covered until october and it resets... too bad i will need to switch to standard in august so i will have a double hit this year but no where near what all of you are talking about, but when i think about hubby in iraq i just kind of feel like we deserve it... is that wrong?

 

[pilesoflaundry]

My husband pays with his life...active duty military.
BTW- I don't know why everyone is so keen to get in on governemnt managed hearthcare...it took me almost two months to get an MRI. My daughter has to wait until June to see an opthamologist, and we scheduled the appointment in March.

I love waiting 2-3 weeks for a sick visit. You aren't sick by then anymore . I'm going to miss seeing civilian docs when we pcs. (there is no family clinic here so we have to go off post for free) It's not going to be fun back to the mtf. We can walk in 7 days a week and be seen within an hour or so if we are sick at our current doc.

I am shocked and horrified by what some of you pay wow.

It's a big reason why dh decided to make a career out of the military. With 3 kids and one of them sick all the time our insurance is such a blessing.

We pay out of pocket for glasses for all of us and we pay a little for dental but the free medical makes up for it.

 

[blanq]

My husband pays with his life...active duty military.
BTW- I don't know why everyone is so keen to get in on governemnt managed hearthcare...it took me almost two months to get an MRI. My daughter has to wait until June to see an opthamologist, and we scheduled the appointment in March.

FYI...it can take that long to get appointments for those of us who are not associated with the military and don't have Tri-Care. When I schedule appointments to see the eye doctor or dentist, often it is months before I can get in although each is good about contacting me if they have a cancellation.

 

[mickey family]

We are retired military and so far TriCAare has been wonderful. We pay $38 a month for a family of 5 with a $12 co-pay per visit. My son had a hospital stay last May that cost over $160,000.00 and we ony had to pay $25 of that, everything else was covered.

 

[JB2K]

Obviously, from what I have read on this thread, it would seem that no two insurance situations are quite the same.

Though I may get pelted with rocks, I'll go ahead and put mine up here...

As I'm a military retiree, my premiums (for a family of 4) are $35 per month. Co-pays for office visits run $12 per visit. Prescriptions from chain/local pharmacies have co-pays of $3 and $9, respectively. All that, and a low catastrophic cap, too.

(Caveat: I opted for dental coverage through my wife's employer, as it was better coverage, and less expensive, than what I could get as a military retiree)

Yes, we military retirees pay premiums and see regular doctors like everyone else -- typically, the "on-base" facilities you may have heard about tend to be reserved for active duty and their families. This is all handled by the DoD's "Tricare" plan (which was briefly mentioned in the 2,000-plus page document the current administration has been showing-around).

Plus, it was also said that DoD Tricare beneficiaries are going to be exempt from the new healthcare plan, since our coverage already falls under the defense budget.

 

[DeniseinNS]

I live in Canada so we don't pay anything related to doctors, hospitals, speech for my son, etc.... The only thing we pay for is dental, eye appointments and prescriptions, we have a plan for that which is around $50 a month for the family and covers 80% of dental, free eye exams, $150 each for eye glasses and prescriptions are 80% for a max of $10.

 

[steph124ny]

My husband and I are both self-employed. We live in NY which is a TERRIBLE state to have to purchase insurance privately due to all their stupid regulations. We pay about 1600 a month (quite a bit more than our mortgage) for our high deductible, 80/20 insurance plan which does not cover dental or vision. That is through the "HealthyNY" plan that is offered to small business owners. It is touted as a wonderful, affordable option. Ummm....OK. Thank God we have a maternity rider.... I'm scared to see what the hospital bill will be after this baby is born.

Once my youngest (due in July) goes to school, I will probably get a job in addition to doing real estate so that I can get some employee sponsered health insurance. That is...asuuming that the government hasn't taken over by then. But I say...even considering our obscene contribution to healthcare, I STILL don't want government healthcare.

 

[DeniseinNS]

These numbers are frightening to me. I live in Canada and although i knew you had to pay to see a dr. i had no idea that your company benefits cost you so much out of pocket!

Are company benefits are very different. i didnt see anyone talking about massage therapy, natural path, chiro, accupuncture? are these type of things covered? Do you pay for prescriptions?

It seems like a lot of money?

I agree, it scares me to see how much people are paying.

 

[mrudman]

Our family pays roughly $250/month for insurance.. with $25 co-pay, $10 prescription.. dental work is about 50% covered (going to opt in to the higher dental coverage at the end of the year).


Just have to mention though, for the Canadians here.. it might seem like we pay a lot, but at this time, our taxes do not cover healthcare, whereas yours does. We pay on average about 30% of our annual income in taxes, where Canada is about 35-38% (give or take depending on province).. so in a household that makes 60k/year, that's an extra $3000-$4800 you're paying per year.

 

[daughtersrus]

That is for the three of us, my husband, myself and our daughter. Our daughter has multiple physical birth defects and because she recieves a small amount of SSI/Disability, she has Medicaid as secondary insurance. Thank God or we would be homeless. Just her tubefeeding supplies and Pediasure run just over 1500 a month and I know the year she had heart surgery and reconstructive bowel surgery, the copays of those bills would have been my husbands pay for the entire year!

I completely understand. DD#3 has a rare genetic disease. As a result, she is severely disabled. Unfortunately, she has not been able to qualify for Medicaid or any waiver programs because in our state, they use parental income/assets to determine eligibility for children. Our health insurance no longer covers any of her therapy, has never covered her hearing aids (almost $5,000) any feeding supplies or diapers. (we're paying about $300 a month just for diapers). They don't cover much of the medical equipment that is needed (it's not medically necessary that she have a bath), glasses (even though she had bilateral cataract surgery). She'll be 16yo this summer. For the first time ever, I think that I'm looking forward to her turning 18yo in a couple of years. From what I understand, our insurance will still be primary and Medicaid will be secondary. With all of the medical expenses that we've had trying to get a diagnosis and treatment, we were worried that we were getting very close to her life-time max of $1M. Now, at least we shouldn't have to worry about that.

 

[daughtersrus]

Are company benefits are very different. i didnt see anyone talking about massage therapy, natural path, chiro, accupuncture? are these type of things covered? Do you pay for prescriptions?

It seems like a lot of money?

These services are not covered by our insurance. We have a co-pay for prescriptions. We pay $6 for a 30 day supply of generic medication and $25 for name brands.
They recently added "tiers" to our prescription coverage. What this means is that if a doctor wants to prescribe a certain drug, insurance may not cover it until you try a less expensive or OTC drug first. There are some drugs that our plan will not cover at all like fluoride or birth control even if it's being prescribed for medical reasons. Some of our pharmacies here (Meijer, Target, Wal-mart) offer free or low cost drugs for some of the more commonly prescribed that are available in generic.

 

[tjs198]

my company is great - they have all the premiums for medical & dental. I only pay $20 copay for doctor visits and $100 deductible for emergency room visits.