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

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

I was pretty glad to get a letter the other day with DH's new premium. It went up $35/month but I was just happy to see the plan continue. It seems expensive to me but is a pre-ACA plan and compared to what is out there now, it's a bargain. It still stinks to pay out $500+/month for something we've never really used. We haven't met our deductible except for maybe 2014 when we might have gone over by a few hundred. Though the EOBs do show discounts so maybe we saved some having insurance. Mine is covered 100% at work but DH and girls are on a plan we got ourselves. I'm afraid what it will be like if our plan is discontinued.

Ours is also a pre-ACA plan. Our prices have slowly increased but nothing like I am reading here.

We meet my deductible, but my husband has met his only once. We do receive discounts on office visits, drugs and lab tests. We also have a per day charge for a hospital stay.

Like you, I don't want to think what our plan will cost after our "grandfathered in" stops.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I am very anxious to see what happens to my FIL. He is self-employed and has his plan through Obamacare. He had a 5k deductible which he met in the spring when diverticulitis sent him to the ER. However, he had had a heart attack this summer and spent seven weeks in the hospital and is still receiving at home physical therapy and speech therapy (went into cardiac arrest and lost oxygen for we're not sure how long). I can't imagine what it's going to run him next year, on top of the medical bills still being paid.

 

[scard192]

Though the EOBs do show discounts so maybe we saved some having insurance..

we pay the BCBS negotiated rate for the charges, I had a bill last month (have not met the deductible). bill was ~ 180 before the BCBS discount, my amount to pay was $125.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I am very anxious to see what happens to my FIL. He is self-employed and has his plan through Obamacare. He had a 5k deductible which he met in the spring when diverticulitis sent him to the ER. However, he had had a heart attack this summer and spent seven weeks in the hospital and is still receiving at home physical therapy and speech therapy (went into cardiac arrest and lost oxygen for we're not sure how long). I can't imagine what it's going to run him next year, on top of the medical bills still being paid.

Under the ACA, insurance companies can't raise your rate more than other similar plans just because you needed care in the previous year. They also can't drop you at renewal time and there are no longer annual or lifetime caps. He should be much better off under the ACA than before, when he would probably been dropped from his insurance and would have had a hard time finding a new policy.

 

[DOREEN1779]

$1200.00 a month. Yep not a typo!

 

[ldo]

Health Ins. should not be the biggest expense after housing--that's crazy. I don't know why the US doesn't do this:
a civil service type corps for Med students to encourage more peds, GP, internal meds, whereby they get a reduced med school rate (maybe not as much as those going into active duty, hot zones) with civil service at a Kaiser/military style civilian health center, which would offer basic care, with a higher standard liability for negligence (I think the military does this). It would be funded like Medicaid, called Medicaid-E (for everyone) and would care for low income Medicaid, as well as anyone who wants to either purchase (if they are over a certain income level). It would come with a catastrophic coverage and much higher copays to see specialists (for those purchasing it), etc. But, everyone could get basic coverage for (I bet) a lower premium and Drs. could get a big chunk of their med school loan-free.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Under the ACA, insurance companies can't raise your rate more than other similar plans just because you needed care in the previous year. They also can't drop you at renewal time and there are no longer annual or lifetime caps. He should be much better off under the ACA than before, when he would probably been dropped from his insurance and would have had a hard time finding a new policy.

Good to know! Like many of our congressmen, I did not read the entirety of the ACA

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Health Ins. should not be the biggest expense after housing--that's crazy. I don't know why the US doesn't do this:
a civil service type corps for Med students to encourage more peds, GP, internal meds, whereby they get a reduced med school rate (maybe not as much as those going into active duty, hot zones) with civil service at a Kaiser/military style civilian health center, which would offer basic care, with a higher standard liability for negligence (I think the military does this). It would be funded like Medicaid, called Medicaid-E (for everyone) and would care for low income Medicaid, as well as anyone who wants to either purchase (if they are over a certain income level). It would come with a catastrophic coverage and much higher copays to see specialists (for those purchasing it), etc. But, everyone could get basic coverage for (I bet) a lower premium and Drs. could get a big chunk of their med school loan-free.

Americans don't want just catastrophic coverage in general though. If that was the case, then the basic plans would have higher enrollment, not the Silver and higher plans which provide for greater benefits.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Good to know! Like many of our congressmen, I did not read the entirety of the ACA

Knowing this stuff is part of my job as a public health attorney.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Knowing this stuff is part of my job as a public health attorney.

Didn't know that was your field! I'll stick to the criminals, they sound less intimidating

 

[AquaDame]

Still nothing... in 2018 though our current plan is cancelled and we will be back in the market (thanks Union for NOT fighting for us!). The plan that my employer offers has remained the same since 2012 without increasing premiums so we'll check that against whatever my husband employer offers us at that point.

 

[Sagginit]

no word on mine yet but I have United on my husband's plan and we expect a slight increase as there is one every year. the main annoyance since obamacare has been the introduction of a dedecutable. I am in my 7 month of pregnancy and we just hit it.

I also randomly got billed for blood work that was done last February as pre-conception and STD screening which is standard by my doctor if you get pregnant or plan to (easier to do ahead of time she explained so I did it at my annual check up). we are on 80/20 so that came to $450 after my 80% being covered. I was shocked to see how much the STD tests cost, if I had know they would bill a few hundred for each I could have easily had them done at a clinic for less but it was my first time having the tests ordered on this insurance plan. I think its a total scam for a lab to charge $200 and up for something so routine. my hope is now that people are seeing how much things actually cost that we will work as a country to lower costs. my doctor's office even does things to keep costs down like only takes cash for payments due the day of treatment and will even skip any non-necessary appointments (such as follow ups for testing over the phone or scheduling one appointment with two blood draws related to it so you only get billed for being there once even though you were actually there twice). it helps but it still costs a ton for basic pre-natal care.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

No word on ours yet either but I work in a small practice - 3 attorneys, 2 support staff, and my monthly family coverage with BCBS PPO is $2,250. Luckily it's 100% covered by my employer but I'm not sure how long they can continue to pay such an astronomical premium.

 

[loves to dive]

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.

I work for a small company and am in charge of shopping health insurance, ours expires Dec. and it's going up 25%. The company pays 75% for employee coverage and 50% for family/children. We split the employees with family plans out so the company is covering the 75% of the employee portion and 50% of the rest. We are looking at another carrier right now that has a little better rates with less deductibles but slightly higher office visit, I think they jump from like $35 to $45 per visit. We offer our employees two plans to choose from but right now everyone is on a $2000 deductible. We are currently with Humana and they offer a 10% reduction per year per employee if the employee reaches certain goals like getting physicals, taking on line quizzes and working out. I'm the only one in the company that met the goal this year because I'm the only one who works out, which is basically the only way you are going to hit it. I hit it around July. 10% is max reduction you can get but the employee earns points and can use those to get discounts and even free stuff. I used mine to get a new heart rate monitor to wear when I work out and just used some more to get $50 Amazon discount, which I used part of to buy a workout DVD. I don't know if the company we are thinking of switching to will offer those kinds of incentives but the rates are actually less than we are paying now without the increase so I guess I'll take that. If that doesn't work out, I'm thinking I might have to talk to the boss and possibly cut down on the employer matching (sucks to be the bookkeeper since my first priority has to be to save the company money). Our agent was actually trying to talk me into a plan that would be a lot cheaper but sort of a HMO, which up to this point I've refused to get for the company. Her thoughts were that my doctor's were in plan and I have supplemental hospital through AFLAC, the plan had some weird high out of pocket for hospital stays. I knew the other employees didn't have that AFLAC and it was no longer offered, I was grandfathered in because I've had it for years. I also didn't know if the rest of the employee's doctors were in plan and I had to do what was best for everyone not just me. Again, sucks to be the one who has to straddle the line of bookkeeper looking out for the company, HR looking out for the employee's and just an employee wanting what's best for me.

 

[angierae]

I work for a small company and my employer pays 100% of my premiums, so if it went up, I have on idea.
DH hasn't taken a look at his ACA plan (he's selfemployed and it was cheaper for him to go through the ACA than pay 100% of the premiums to be added to my insurance) so I'm not sure what' going on there yet.

 

[Minnesota!]

Ours went up $32/month. But, it now includes vision, so I dropped our separate coverage on vision, and that was $22/month. So, in reality...$10/month is all it went up.

 

[Dakota731]

In my state, they interviewed a doctor that closed her practice. When she sat with a business adviser, 75% of her expenditures was insurance related.

Our primary care physician said she is required to see a patient every ten minutes to break even.

 

[yeahdisney]

Ours went up $43 a paycheck, paid every two weeks.

 

[mom2my3kids]

My husband is Union so with the contract was three years, first two years we seen a increase but the third year we have no increase per the agreement..We pay 20 percent and his employer pays 80 percent...

 

[JohnDaleswife]

Well my cousins went up by about $0. She is a sorry mother with a few kids she hardly raises, refuses to work and gets all her healthcare 100% free.