UGH!!! Health Insurance! How Much Did Your Premiums Go Up?

[Marionnette]

And what are you doing to mitigate the price increase?

We just got our notice and the cost is going up another $500 per month!!!! I could drop my cable AND cellphone plans and I still would not make up that difference. We're looking into a cheaper plan, but the deductibles and co-pays on them are so high that it would end up costing us pretty much the same amount OOP in the long run while requiring referrals and restricting access to select providers.

So, how are others absorbing the cost increases? Are you dumbing down your plans (if at all possible) or are you tightening your belts more in order to keep your current coverage? If it's the latter, what kind of cost-saving measures are you taking to absorb the hit?

 

[havaneselover]

Mine went up 12% (employer pays half). I dropped down to the bronze plan with a $6,000 deductible to offset the increase.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Haven't heard anything about DH's, but ours at work remained the same for individuals and actually went down for family plans. I work for local government, not sure if that has anything to do with it.

 

[Dakota731]

Ours went up $50 a pay period and we have a $6000 deductible!!!

 

[daughtersrus]

Ours did not go up at all. We have had the same deductible $250/person $500/family since DH started 31 years ago. Co-pay is 20% of discounted bills for outpatient and 10% of discounted bills for inpatient.
We have a self-funded plan that uses BC/BS PPO to process the claims through a union DH is a member of.

 

[clm10308]

Mine was going up a bit, but no where what you describe.
I discovered that we would actually save $300 per month by switching to the insurance through my husband's job, but we will have higher out of pocket expenses. The in network coypays are slightly higher with his plan, but the out of network costs are much, much higher. We will have to make sure not to go out of network if at all possible.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Ours isn't going up but I chose a cheaper plan.

My plan was $120 per pay period. I work for a healthcare system so if I went to a physician in my healthcare system copays were $15, no deductible 100% coverage. If I went to an Amerihealth physician copays were $35, no deductible 100% coverage. If I went out of network there's deductibles and coinsurances, etc.

I'm doing the plan that is $89 per pay period. Now it'll be $35 in the healthcare system, $50 for Amerihealth physicians, no deductible or coinsurances unless out of network.

We don't go to the doctor often, we don't use out of network doctors, we don't go to any hospital except the one I work for so I'm not worried about the deductible.

I'm going to take that extra $30 a pay period and put it into a savings account.

When I started here 13 years ago I paid $25 per pay period for BCBS PPO, 100% coverage and very low copays. We could also go to physicians outside of our healthcare system with no deductible or higher copay.

 

[havaneselover]

Small businesses are having a tough time right now. My company only pays 50% for the employee and the employee pays 100% for spouse and children. For a family with three children our top plan is about $25,000/year. We can't compete with big companies and the government.

 

[davper]

My plan at work did not go up. I have the a high deductible ($3000) with HSA plane. I submit the max to the HSA.
All other plans in my office went up 15%.

 

[wilkeliza]

So far we haven't gotten our open envorlement packet yet but our company phone call about benefits changes in 2017 said that our rates are actually going down. Even with rates going down I'm thinking of switching from my PPO to a HSA High Deductible plan and putting the difference in the HSA. It is always hard to figure out which one is the best option especially when so much of what you get insurance for is unplanned stuff (cancer, broken bones, etc).

 

[Mickeyluver37]

Ours went up 8% but the deductible is not going up this year. We have a HDHP and the employer does not offer another option.

Small businesses are having a tough time right now. My company only pays 50% for the employee and the employee pays 100% for spouse and children. For a family with three children our top plan is about $25,000/year. We can't compete with big companies and the government.

Does your company charge based on how many children a person has? I have a friend that works for a small business as well, and he is charged that way. With 4 kids, I'm glad we have one set family premium no matter how many people are in that family! However, he also just got a refund of several hundred dollars of his premiums for the year due to the new ACA rule about how much profit insurance companies can make.

 

[Marionnette]

So, for those of you who say that your rates are the same or going down, is that with keeping the same plan? or is it because your employer changed the available plans? or your employer is taking care of the increase.

And for those who work for the government or have union plans, I'm jealous. You guys seem to be insulated from the cost increases.

 

[havaneselover]

Ours went up 8% but the deductible is not going up this year. We have a HDHP and the employer does not offer another option.




Does your company charge based on how many children a person has? I have a friend that works for a small business as well, and he is charged that way. With 4 kids, I'm glad we have one set family premium no matter how many people are in that family! However, he also just got a refund of several hundred dollars of his premiums for the year due to the new ACA rule about how much profit insurance companies can make.

Yes. We have to pay for each child. There is a max (maybe 4).

I'm supposed to get a small refund too but I doubt I will--our bookkeeper doesn't really care.

 

[wilkeliza]

So, for those of you who say that your rates are the same or going down, is that with keeping the same plan? or is it because your employer changed the available plans? or your employer is taking care of the increase.

And for those who work for the government or have union plans, I'm jealous. You guys seem to be insulated from the cost increases.

Ours is same plans. The big difference is our moderate size company (1,000+ employees with 5 US offices and a handful of global offices) was acquired by an even bigger company. Since we are now apart of a fortune 500 company our plans were negotiated to cost us much much less. Again I still don't know the pricing but if it is what our new parent company pays I'll be very happy.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We just did Open Enrollment. Ours didn't go up at all and our plans didn't change at all.

 

[Pooh2]

Just did open enrollment, up 22% for next year.
Up more than $6,000/year since the Affordable Care Act came to be.
We reduced our retirement contribution to help bridge the gap.

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

Our open enrollment isn't at the end of the year. Ours is in April.

So at this point we have no idea what the cost will be.

 

[scard192]

ours went up 10%, used to be a 75/25 split, now it's 70/30. plan changed a few years ago, no more $25 co pays for office visits, we pay 100% until we meet the deductible and then it's 80/20. we are charged BCBS negotiated rates for OOP.
we have a choice between a PPO or High Deductible plan.

we have a health and wellness program and if you are active and do on line courses and other things you earn points towards reaching levels that allow us to save $$ on our health insurance premiums. I make sure that I reach the highest level and save about $40/month. We also earn "bucks" that can be redeemed for Amazon gift cards.

 

[JessM]

Plans through my employer actually went down this year. The plans are the same as last year. They were restructured last year after the ACA went live. I think our deductibles went down this year as well. Last year I got the mid level plan because the deductible was so high on the value plan but after doing the math the value will work best for me this year even with the higher deductible. It is $7.50 a pay period (bi-weekly). It's actually cheaper than my dental and vision. I work for a 22,000 person engineering firm. It is a Canadian company, I'm not sure if that has anything to do with i the high amount of health care they cover or not.

 

[DisneyMandC]

So, for those of you who say that your rates are the same or going down, is that with keeping the same plan? or is it because your employer changed the available plans? or your employer is taking care of the increase.

And for those who work for the government or have union plans, I'm jealous. You guys seem to be insulated from the cost increases.

Same plan for our local government. They offer two different providers, one of which is a higher deductible I believe (again, I'm not on it). The individual price for the better plan is $30/pay period, but you can receive credit for "living healthy" and get it down to $15/pay period (every two weeks). For Employee and Spouse it's $203/pay period (waaaay higher than DH's, and he works for a private, albeit very large, national company). Employee plus family is $305/pay period. I believe they said the employee + family one was the only one that would see a decrease, but not sure what that is.

I haven't heard anything about employer taking care of an increase. I do recognize that I am very fortunate, even though I am on DH's insurance. I think we determined that if we both went individual on our own insurance that it would come out slightly cheaper, but DH's insurance covers some things I use such as chiropractic and acupuncture. Plus I have showed up for more than one appointment and not known what my copay was and the doctor told me they would bill me for it. I never received a bill and checked later and saw where my insurance somehow picked that up as well. I don't even know how it happened, I don't think it came out of our HSA but I never paid a dime for two visits to the Allergist this year.