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Yet another health insurance premium rant thread - 2015

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edro said:
I assume everyone is getting updates from their employers right about now for upcoming open enrollment / cost increases?

I haven't received one yet, but they didn't raises costs last year, so I expect they will this year.
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Ours usually hits mid November. Can't wait!! I'm taking bets in the office. The over/under is 8% raise in premiums and a 10% hike in max out of pocket.
 
My individual employer plan offered by UHC is:
$88/mo ($1056/yr)
  • $800 Deductible
  • $3400 Out of Pocket Max per Year
  • 80/20 After Deductible

I thought this was so-so, but after seeing some of your plans, it is amazing.
 
Company pays 100% for a high deductible plan ($4500 deductible with $6000 max out of pocket) but then funds an HSA for me each year with $4500 so $1500 is the most in medical expenses I'll have each year.
 
TXHokie said:
So I bitched about this 5 yrs ago on this forum how my premium went up 20% and it was blamed on the impending Obamacare back then. Since then I've switched to the lower HSA plan with big deductibles. Not even going into how our first ER visit pretty much wiped out the HSA saving account that first year...ok I just did.

Fast forward, I just got our next year premium HSA renewal and it jumped 20%. No reason was given but my sarcastic self is saying that thanks to Obamacare, it's "only" 20% increase instead of 30% so just suck it.

How do guys with family coverage go about managing this cost? I think I need to look for another job with companies that just provides better insurance benes. Crazy.

/rant
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My insurance rates were creeping up at steady rate since I started with my company 15 years ago.
All ACA did was give people was new talking points to BS people with on why rates increased. They were screwing us every year before Obama. They are doing the same amount of screwing after Obama.


This years "official reason" why our rates jumped was
"They didn't expect so many people to get sick this year"

Last year they blamed fat 20 and 30 somethings getting knee\hip replacements.

The year before that was something about the position of moon turning some people into werewolves and that the unexpected uptick in doctors visits for anti moonshine therapy caused additional expenses.

The year before that they claimed that the ACA required a change in font to all printed material so they had to cover costs of reprinting.

The best was that one year when they said "coin flip resulted in heads therefore 5% increase in premiums."
 
i think my employer's health plan actually got better. i'm curious as to how it will compare with the 2016 ACA plans in my area. waiting for open season to start so i can compare rates.
 
right after ACA went into effect my school came out with a much more expensive plan that has worse coverage. And they dropped dental & vision.


USAA has a plan right now that finally started in Virginia. For just me it will cost about 500 a month, and thats not even the good plan. Its the cheap one.
 
Mixed bag on mine.

Premiums went up by a little more than 10% on the employee side. Losing our long time carrier for an out-of-state one. On one hand the OOP maximums went up significantly, on the other the deductibles sort of went down. A whole host of other little changes too.

I'm pretty sure that we won't be seeing raises to cover the changes either next year, because why would that happen. Another year of "Just be happy you have a job."
 
Don't worry guise... Obamacare will fix all this... One of these years.... Not the last 3 years, but the next one man. The next one will fix it all.

Obamacare prices for their bare minimal coverage ONLY increased an overage of 7.5% in one year... I mean, that barely beats inflation amirite? And that's average. Plenty of places are double digit increases:

Most states won't be like Minnesota, where all five carriers selling individual policies on the insurance exchange have posted double-digit increases, from 14 percent to 49 percent.
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If it's not the next one, then it's the one after.
 
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And on a personal note, my company insurance is going from $4,368 ($168 per 2 week pay-period) to $4,732 ($182 per pay period) for me and the wife.

Oh joy! Yay for 8% increase! At least my insurance doesn't suck, but god damn. It sure does suck to be young and healthy.
 
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Strk said:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2015/06/29/u-s-health-care-costs-rise-faster-than-inflation/

Because our previous position of do nothing was working so well....
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Hate to break it to you, but yes - I look back on those and ENJOYED the days of getting health insurance increases that were around par with the inflation rate. Last I checked, 8% is way past our average yearly inflation rate.

I have only seen people complaining this much about their employer health insurance costs to this degree (6%+) recently. This isn't typical from 10 years ago.
 
14% here this year. Fewer plan options. Company deductible contributions cut out entirely. Higher deductibles. Higher out of pocket costs. Less coverage. Yep ACA is great.
 
cbrsurfr said:
14% here this year. Fewer plan options. Company deductible contributions cut out entirely. Higher deductibles. Higher out of pocket costs. Less coverage. Yep ACA is great.
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I'm not going to blame it on ACA -- things were climbing steadily on their own long before ACA came into play.
 
Homerboy said:
I'm not going to blame it on ACA -- things were climbing steadily on their own long before ACA came into play.
Click to expand...

That's because Obamacare's the same old shit, but with 100% more mandate. There's a whole class of cruft in the middle that takes money, but provides nothing of value. The middle is what needs to be cut, but it never will, because they provide a lot of money to politicians.
 
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such Obamacare threads as "Sactoking's ACA Q&A" thread!

Long story short, I left my state insurance regulation job this year and through circuitous circumstances I am now self-employed. I needed insurance for my family but with only three or so months of coverage before my policy reset I knew I would NEVER reach my accumulators (deductible, OOP max) so I just picked the absolute cheapest plan I could. It's an HMO plan through Anthem BCBS with a $6300/12600 deductible. Monthly premium for my family of four is $763.16 and we're currently getting a $615/mo tax credit, so my OOP premium is $148.16. Got my renewal notice in the mail a couple of weeks back that the new premium will be well over $900/mo. The plan design is unchanged, except the embedded pediatric dental benefit is getting much worse (50% coinsurance after deductible instead of no cost after deductible). My tax credit will go up slightly because our Co-Op is insolvent, meaning the second lowest cost silver plan is going up, but my OOP premium is projected to be more than double what it is this year.

Only ~$5 of the increase is attributable to getting older (the kids are still on the 0-19 age curve, which is a constant premium).

Luckily I know about 6 ways to game the system so I won't have to put with this next year when I can shop based on actual coverage quality and not to just "have coverage."
 
Homerboy said:
I'm not going to blame it on ACA -- things were climbing steadily on their own long before ACA came into play.
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Yes, which was acceptable. I recall days of steady increases around inflation levels, which IS EXPECTED in keeping up with inflation. So approx 3% increases was very normal.

Most people here that are seeing increases are all over 6%+ (many double digit) That is past inflation and into FUCKING ALARMING rate.
 
Thank goodness I'm single and young so I can get on my company's HDHP. In 2016, for the first time, I will have to contribute for part of the increased premium. All HSA contributions have been made by the employee only.

The rate for the family HDHP is just over $1300/month. For the "premium" POS plan it is over $2000/month which still has a $8000 family deductible and the health insurance company only pays 80% after deductible (LOL). Company pays about half of the premiums for family plans. Thanks Obama.
 
Homerboy said:
I'm not going to blame it on ACA -- things were climbing steadily on their own long before ACA came into play.
Click to expand...

My company sent out a notice blaming additional ACA fees for this years increases. Prior to ACA we had some completely flat years where there were NO increases to the end user premiums. Now it goes up every year and at greater % then ever experienced before.
 
edro said:
I assume everyone is getting updates from their employers right about now for upcoming open enrollment / cost increases?

I haven't received one yet, but they didn't raises costs last year, so I expect they will this year.
Click to expand...

we just did yours. my PPO plan with BCBS went up $23.00 a month. I was fully expecting to take a hit.

1200 deductible, 6000 total out of pocket.
 
sactoking said:
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such Obamacare threads as "Sactoking's ACA Q&A" thread!

Long story short, I left my state insurance regulation job this year and through circuitous circumstances I am now self-employed. I needed insurance for my family but with only three or so months of coverage before my policy reset I knew I would NEVER reach my accumulators (deductible, OOP max) so I just picked the absolute cheapest plan I could. It's an HMO plan through Anthem BCBS with a $6300/12600 deductible. Monthly premium for my family of four is $763.16 and we're currently getting a $615/mo tax credit, so my OOP premium is $148.16. Got my renewal notice in the mail a couple of weeks back that the new premium will be well over $900/mo. The plan design is unchanged, except the embedded pediatric dental benefit is getting much worse (50% coinsurance after deductible instead of no cost after deductible). My tax credit will go up slightly because our Co-Op is insolvent, meaning the second lowest cost silver plan is going up, but my OOP premium is projected to be more than double what it is this year.

Only ~$5 of the increase is attributable to getting older (the kids are still on the 0-19 age curve, which is a constant premium).

Luckily I know about 6 ways to game the system so I won't have to put with this next year when I can shop based on actual coverage quality and not to just "have coverage."
Click to expand...
So I need to hire you to figure out the best I can get at the best price?

Haven't gotten my rate increase for 2016 yet. I'm expecting $700+ for a $10K deductible.🙁😱😵
 
Just found out our new twist to our company provided insurance for next year...

We will get 'rebates' applied to our monthly premiums if we 'say' we drink 8 glasses of water/day, exercise a certain amount of hours, etc...this is on top of non-smoking discount and a discount for providing biometeric data on a quarterly basis...
 
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