How Much Do You Pay For Health Insurance?
As I piece together our budget spreadsheets projecting our expenses for the next 60 years, there’s one line item that I keep coming back to over and over, the cost of health care. I predict our future expenses with all sorts of inflation rates for our expenses… but what about health care? How much will it cost? At what rate will it increase?
We’ve made it no secret that my husband works for health insurance. Our original long term backup plan was access to my husband’s health insurance, which we would have access to for life in 7 more years. However, the writing on the wall says it’s time to let go of that backup plan and move on.
Enter private health insurance. We’ve done all the quotes for individual policies, but since my background is in insurance, I know that unfortunately the quote you get or the first year premium has little to do with your renewal premiums in the future.
Health Care in the Future
Obviously, a lot of the future health care costs may hinge on the health care reform and what it will look like if and when it’s actually implemented.
There is an interesting Kaiser calculator that predicts what individual health care will cost in 2014 with the tax subsidies. Based on the calculator, you could make some reasonable assumptions for future costs.
But obviously, (even leaving politics out of it) it doesn’t make sense to make any financial decisions based on that law. So we’re back at square one for predicting health care costs.
How Much Do You Pay for Health Care?
So as we do some planning to move into the individual health care market, I’d like to hear from you. Let’s talk about money. How much do you pay for health insurance?
For the group insurance plan we’re on now, we currently pay about $200 in premiums per month for a family HMO plan. In addition, the plan has a 10% coinsurance.
How much do you pay for health insurance? How much do you think it will cost in the future? If you plan to retire early, how much have you budgeted annually for health insurance costs?
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$200 for a family HMO is cheap in my opinion.But without any other details, hard to compare. I’m paying $1500 a month for a family of 3+ plan Oxford HMO with 10% coinsurance. And that is a group rate but no company subsidy.
How would I inquire about your $200 paln?
Hi Doug,
It’s a state plan; he works for the university. If I remember correctly, the rate is $1200 per month and the university kicks in $1000. And it’s obviously very cheap, which is why I’m trying to determine how much we’ll really be paying once we are purchasing it in the open market without a group plan.
I am self employed so we buy our own insurance. We have a BCBS high deductible plan with $10,000 deductible for $435/month (family of four) – my premiums increased this year by ~$10/month. We pay everything out of pocket (up to $10,000) other than vaccinations and one well visit per person, which are covered up front. We fully fund our HSA each year and have enough set aside to cover our deductible if needed. Despite the $10,000 deductible, I am happy with the high deductible plan. The premiums for a traditional plan are astronomical. I have done comparisons in good years (low med use) and bad years (high med use, though different high deductible plan than I currently have) and every time the high deductible plan has been better for us.
Good luck.