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Baffling insurance costs

M

MustISO

Lifer
This issue comes up whenever it's time to pick an insurance plan and no one has been able to address the reasons behind it.

When picking a plan, you choose individual coverage, Parent+Children, Husband and Wife or Family. There is no limitation on number of children in any scenario.

Here's the part I don't get. For a husband and wife, it's $600 month for insurance. For a single parent with any number of kids (let's say 4 kids but the cost is the same if you have 9 kids) it's only $400 month. I'm not be an expert on insurance costs but most adults I know go to the doctor once per year while people with kids take the kids to the doctor frequently (in my experience).

No one I've asked can answer why there is this differential in cost. It simply seems ridiculous to me.
 
I don't recall the exact numbers but I found this to be the case too. My wife and me on the same plan cost more than how we have it set up now which is me on my own ($75/mo.) and her and 2 kids on hers (~$300?).
 
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What kind of insurance? That sounds very expensive. I pay about $160/mo for house and car. Car being the majority of the cost, which to me makes no sense when the house is worth about 30 times more.
 
Red Squirrel said:
What kind of insurance? That sounds very expensive. I pay about $160/mo for house and car. Car being the majority of the cost, which to me makes no sense when the house is worth about 30 times more.
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Seriously? You're notsogood at picking up on notsosubtle inference.

He's talking about health insurance. Not car or homeowners' insurance
 
Red Squirrel said:
What kind of insurance? That sounds very expensive. I pay about $160/mo for house and car. Car being the majority of the cost, which to me makes no sense when the house is worth about 30 times more.
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STFU, silly Canuckistanian...The OP is talking about health insurance...something you get for free.
 
1. Adults cost more to insure than kids. Adults tend to get things like cancer, cirrhosis, emphysema and other chronic illnesses at much higher rates than kids.
2. Employers tend to subsidize spouses less than kids since spouses can get jobs that provide insurance whereas kids usually can't.
 
Red Squirrel said:
What kind of insurance? That sounds very expensive. I pay about $160/mo for house and car. Car being the majority of the cost, which to me makes no sense when the house is worth about 30 times more.
Click to expand...

Let's say I entertain myself for answering this question in a health insurance thread; let me ask you this: When was the last time you saw a porch-bender accident between two houses?
 
Insurance isn't really there to cover those doctor visits for kids, it's for those catastrophic illnesses that will cost a lot to treat. I would imagine that adults tend to cost much more than children when they go to the hospital.
 
MustISO said:
This issue comes up whenever it's time to pick an insurance plan and no one has been able to address the reasons behind it.

When picking a plan, you choose individual coverage, Parent+Children, Husband and Wife or Family. There is no limitation on number of children in any scenario.

Here's the part I don't get. For a husband and wife, it's $600 month for insurance. For a single parent with any number of kids (let's say 4 kids but the cost is the same if you have 9 kids) it's only $400 month. I'm not be an expert on insurance costs but most adults I know go to the doctor once per year while people with kids take the kids to the doctor frequently (in my experience).

No one I've asked can answer why there is this differential in cost. It simply seems ridiculous to me.
Click to expand...


While young children tend to go to the MD more than adults, it's usually for more trivial stuff like colds, vaccinations, etc.

Adults are where health costs tend to get expensive as adults face the longer term health problems like cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, carpal tunnel, arthritis, etc., etc. Not saying children don't get those problems, but the incidence of those types of issues in children is vastly smaller than in adults. And the solutions/treatments for the adult problems is usually more expensive than childhood ailments.....diagnostic procedures, long term drug therapy, surgery, etc.
 
SSSnail said:
Let's say I entertain myself for answering this question in a health insurance thread; let me ask you this: When was the last time you saw a porch-bender accident between two houses?
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Any time there is a hurricane or other natural disaster. :biggrin: Then again insurance does not cover that stuff, so guess you pay less, but get less. Typically they'll try to avoid paying for anything. Flood in basement, electrical is not up to code? Not covered, the electrical panel caused it! :biggrin:
 
MustISO said:
This issue comes up whenever it's time to pick an insurance plan and no one has been able to address the reasons behind it.

When picking a plan, you choose individual coverage, Parent+Children, Husband and Wife or Family. There is no limitation on number of children in any scenario.

Here's the part I don't get. For a husband and wife, it's $600 month for insurance. For a single parent with any number of kids (let's say 4 kids but the cost is the same if you have 9 kids) it's only $400 month. I'm not be an expert on insurance costs but most adults I know go to the doctor once per year while people with kids take the kids to the doctor frequently (in my experience).

No one I've asked can answer why there is this differential in cost. It simply seems ridiculous to me.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming this is for health insurance offered by your employer?

It has nothing to do with the cost to insure children vs adults. What's happening is your employer is subsidizing the cost of the coverage, and while they are happy to pay for you and your children, they are not willing to pay for your spouse. Your employer wants you spouse to get insurance through thier own job, thus you have to pay the full freight for their coverage.

This is becoming more common, especially since in most couples both work and fewer people actually have to rely on a sole provider.
 
For the same reason my pet insurance keeps going up as my dog gets older...they're not worried about the $150 charges for taking your kid to check out their ear ache, they're worried about the $750k hospital bill when your hospitalized for a week for who knows what.
 
They really fuck over the couple with one kid.

I was paying over $1300/mo for a Family plan (people who say union employees get better health coverage are fucking stupid.) Sure, it wouldn't go up if I had 8 more kids...but I only have one, so $1300/mo is out-fucking-rageous.
 
I'm not a fan of subsidizing those who choose to have more than 2 kids.

After 2-kids, rates should go up for each additional child.
 
Fmr12B said:
I'm not a fan of subsidizing those who choose to have more than 2 kids.

After 2-kids, rates should go up for each additional child.
Click to expand...

Screw that, everyone added to the insurance plan should increase the rate, based on their risk factor. Period.

Smoke? Pay more.

Fat? Pay More.

History of Cancer? Pay more.

More kids? Pay more.
 
Historically, old people tend to have higher costs. In the old insurance plans, companies were somewhat protected from children and adults coming on with the pre-existing conditions clause. Not only is removal of that going to hurt a lot of people by raising the costs of insurance, it's going to help a lot of people who couldn't have gotten any coverage previously.

I am thankful to have insurance through my employer and my wife's employer, but I'm going to state that I don't like the insurance model. I don't like hospital billing systems. Both are middleman schemes that take money from us (consumers) and doctors (providers). The only catch is, a lot of doctors are smart businessmen and have positioned themselves on the boards of hospitals...they often look out for other physicians and have helped inflate healthcare costs in some sectors over the years.

Are doctors worth $200k a year? Yes...in my opinion they are... Are hospital and insurance CEOs, VPs and board members worth $1-10M a year? ...umm....No.

I said it before Obamacare....I'd like to see private hospitals everywhere And see nonprofit hospitals either run by the states or federal government come in and pay doctors and administrators a set wage with no bonuses....perhaps with student loan repayment as a perk. That would drive competition to private healthcare and help regulate pricing. This is the kind of model they use overseas.

The only problem is, the construction of those kinds of facilities and barriers of entry would be a long, uphill battle for any organization that's not already established. It would just be awesome though if they found some way to provide services for certain markets and start a slow process to a nationwide network of hospitals to take as much marketshare as they can.
 
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