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

[manning]

You can look at all the news articles about the increases online. My state has the highest increase in the country with an average premium increase of 76%. We only have one insurer left on the exchange, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the rest have dropped off and will not be providing insurance. I heard from several more friends this weekend. The lowest I heard went from $400 a month to $900 a month for a single person. Most have premiums which have jumped from about $800 to between $1400 and $1600 per month- several with families are over $1600 a month, some over $2,000. I have heard from several people that they absolutely can't do it, so they are just dropping insurance because the penalty for being uninsured is only the price of 1 to 2 months of the health insurance. I worry because some of these people have kids. A couple are going to switch to a catastrophic insurance policy only- which means they said they and their family will not be going to the doctor at all unless it is something very serious or if their kids are sick for more than a week and not getting better. It is really sad. These are the middle class people that do not qualify for any assistance, but flat out can not afford the premiums. Although I have seen articles saying that it won't affect most people because insurance runs through their employer, that is garbage. Our premiums for the office increased 25% in April and are increasing another 20% now. We are okay, but there are several small business employers that can not handle the increase. Plus, my office pays for the employee, but the employee must pay for the dependents-- it is still pre-tax-- but the insurer breaks it down individually as to how the premium is calculated (not an average per person, but rather the insurer shows exactly the premium for each individual and dependent on the plan) and the increases per some of the specific people are quite large. Some of the dependent premiums have almost doubled. Our state - or at least the middle class in our state- is definitely much much worse off right now.

Not quite. Arizona was hit with 116% with only one provider on the plan. Couple that with doctors leaving and deductible sky rocketing.

There are two parts to health coverage, deductibles and premiums.

Raise the premium and lower the deductible.
Lower the premium and raise the deductible.

 

[scrapquitler]

Not quite. Arizona was hit with 116% with only one provider on the plan. Couple that with doctors leaving and deductible sky rocketing.

There are two parts to health coverage, deductibles and premiums.

Raise the premium and lower the deductible.
Lower the premium and raise the deductible.

Or in the case of my policy the last three years: raise the premium and raise the deductible.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Our premiums didn't change. We have Tricare and for my husband and I, we pay less than $500 a year for our premium. No complaints here!

 

[Dakota731]

Couple that with doctors leaving and deductible sky rocketing.

I have several family members in healthcare and they have told me that several hospitals in our area are in trouble of closing. This is scary stuff!

 

[emma9630]

We have a Carefirst HMO with no deductible and the policy went up $220 a month out of pocket.

 

[mco65]

~$45 a month

 

[agavegirl1]

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.

Ours is very similar but with the dollar value per hour going toward benefits up by 1.70 with a corresponding wage increase. So about $295.00 per month but no decrease in take home pay.

 

[dadtoagirl03]

What is happening now was the plan all along. ACA was designed to fail to push the country to a single payer system. I have a father in the VA health system and if anyone had to deal with that nightmare they'd pray that the government has no control over their healthcare.

 

[kamik86]

I have several family members in healthcare and they have told me that several hospitals in our area are in trouble of closing. This is scary stuff!

One of the ones in my area already closed. My entire county has one hospital. For many people that means a 40 min drive to the nearest hospital in good conditions. Many of those areas have stretches without good alternative routes so one accident or bad weather can easily double that.

 

[bellebud]

we currently pay about 2250.00 per month for a family of 4 (we're small business owners) and that's not including dental and eye. I'm actually relived, ours is only going up to $2450.00 per month. Insane, I know.

So, here's what is always in my mind... if we gave "free" healthcare to everyone by raising taxes, I'm all for it, IF my family is also included in that... rich, middle, poor. But as we all know, that will never happen, my family and those like ours will not be included in the "free" part, we'll still have to pay for ours, and our taxes will go up.

 

[erinmomof2]

The cost for our current plan was going up so much that my husband's employer can no longer afford it, so we are switching policies. Now we will be paying about $20 a month more for much worse coverage. Our deductible is going up by $2,000 and all of our copays are almost doubling. It drives me crazy that we are actually paying more money for far less than we had before. My husband works for a small IT firm and we've been getting worse and worse insurance (but of course paying more for it) each year since the AFA began. My husband's boss is talking about discontinuing offering insurance because it is just getting to be too expensive.

 

[Allison]

$2.80 for family coverage per month.

 

[linzjane88]

There was only a couple dollar increase from last year--about 15$. For our family we each have a high deductible plan offered through work and my husbands is better than mine (and I am the one who works in healthcare. Go figure!). We put the kids with him but I stayed on mine through work. Combined for everyone we are paying $327 for our medical only. Dental is an additional $85 --we double covered the kids so its a touch higher than it needs to be. Vision is $13 a month for everyone.

Splitting the family up on plans wasn't my preference because if something bad happened to all of us at once we have two deductibles, two out of pocket maximums, etc. But lets just hope that doesn't happen

 

[Golf4food]

Our Family coverage (two adults, 1 child) with our Fortune 50 major company went up $1,200 (61.3% increase) last year OOP and this year would go up $1,800 more (57.0% increase) if I wanted to keep the similar coverage ($4k deductible (up $1k from 2016), $6k max OOP (up $2k from 2016)).

Instead, we can keep our same cost as last year but the deductibles change to $6k deductible, $9k OOP max. Plus they are taking away $300 that they were providing as matching funds if you contribute to the HSA (we contribute the full amount, which of course did not increase this year, thanks Congress).

So that is effectively a $1,500 pay cut in two years, would be $3,300 if we kept the lower deductibles/OOP max, but we still bear the risk to lose the additional difference from the higher deductible/max.

Since 2014 the high deductible HSA plan has gone up 211.1% for employees and the company has decreased the amount they cover from 86.4% to 72.4%. The company cost has increased only 28.3% as a result (again, versus the 211% increase to employees).

 

[hoffman1]

Our premium for an employee/spouse plan only went up around $20 per month starting in 2017. I was very thankful.
Our premiums almost doubled for 2016 and our deductibles, copays, and OOP max have all increased.
It is really hurting us financially.

 

[Albort]

man, now that there is a almost sure chance of Obamacare to be appealed, im wondering what will happen in the near future...

 

[manning]

Our premiums didn't change. We have Tricare and for my husband and I, we pay less than $500 a year for our premium. No complaints here!

Tricare is military

 

[TwoMisfits]

man, now that there is a almost sure chance of Obamacare to be appealed, im wondering what will happen in the near future...

If it gets repealed, at a minimum, stupid 29 hour jobs should go away in favor of real full time or real part time work again.

 

[kmb584]

I have Highmark BCBS and haven't received a notice in the mail (yet) that my rates will be increasing. I do know though that all of the physicians that I work for received letters stating that their coverage will be ending on 12/31 and that they need to select a new plan.

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

If ours went up, DH's employer must have absorbed it. We pay $300 every 2 weeks for our high deductable health insurance, but $5K a year of that is deposited into the HSA. I think we have a decent deal. I don't like that the deductable is 5K, but the HSA would cover it if necessary. The main complaint I have is that some meds aren't included on the formulary (and they keep changing which ones), so they don't go towards the deductable even though we have to pay 100% out-of-pocket.