What do ERE-ers pay for health insurance in 2016?

[Allagash]

I read though the archives and didn't find a thread on what everyone pays (maybe I missed it) so I thought I'd start one. Please tell us what your monthly premium is and what your deductible is.

I'm retired not married, no kids, healthy, and 46 years old. I live in WA State. The cheapest plan I could find on the WA health exchange was $222/mo with a $6,500 deductible (Molina), and I pay $18/mo for a dental plan. So I pay $2,880 a year to my insurance company for the privilege of paying pretty much everything 100% out of pocket for my health care (unlikely I will ever hit $6,500 for the insurance to start to kick in) unless something major happened. I've heard premiums could go up sharply in 2017.

I'm not sure of any way that I could lower this bill other than going self-insured and paying the annual ACA penalty, which to me seems too risky.

What do others pay for health insurance?

[Forskaren]

Nothing extra except taxes when I am healthy. If I do get sick I pay minor fees. Fees: Maximum of about $100/year for doctor visits and about $250/year for medicines. I live in Sweden.

I should mention that dental is not included in general healthcare here. Some part of the dental cost is paid by taxes, but it could still be up to $10000 out of pocket if you need to replace all teeth with artificial transplants.

[jacob]

I did a very quick search on ehealthinsurance for a 41yo male in IL and it came out to $120/month with $5k deductible and 0% coinsurance and not HSA eligible. I didn't find anything HSA eligible with my brief search. This is about similar to free market costs in CA plus some inflation and age over the past few years. "Doctor prices" are somewhat lower in IL than CA and that's another important factor. It seems that coinsurance is often ignored in these online comparisons, but a non-zero coinsurance seems more likely to sink a FIRE plan than a high deductible.

I'm currently covered by DW's work plan at $63/month which is currently the cheapest. Another option would be both of us insured under my schedule C income. Then there's free market option above and there's also ACA which would likely be the optimal one should DW decide to retire since our AGI would drop to 20-30k. Given how fast things are constantly changing and how the US tax code makes it eminently possible to minimize costs, this underlines the importance of not getting specialized with a single-source kind of income or being stuck in a particular state if it proves too onerous. It's unfortunate that it has to be so complicated but it is what it is.

Here are some informative and I think up-to-date links. All health insurance posts on the ERE blog are pre-ACA.

http://www.gocurrycracker.com/obamacare ... imization/
http://www.gocurrycracker.com/obamacare ... etirement/

[Allagash]

They are pretty stingy with who qualifies for the ACA subsidy in WA State. You have to make under $30k a year as a single person to start qualifying for any subsidy with ACA in WA. So self-employed or early retired person could be making only $30k a year in an expensive place like Seattle and still have to pay a $250/mo health insurance policy with a very high deductible. And that may go up again in 2017. Before ACA kicked in 2014 I was paying $130/mo for a high deductible plan in WA. ACA being passed raised the premiums significantly for self-employed/ERE people, and the only thing it really added over previous private health insurance was no denial for pre-existing conditions (which was important). When I lived in CA in 2012 I was paying $105/mo with Blue Cross with a $10k deductible.

[Allagash]

And I would imagine health insurance gets really expensive for a slightly older self-employed/retired person who is say 62 years old, not yet qualified for medicare (65+), yet makes too much to get any subsidy with ACA. That could become a really huge expense to carry.

[chicago81]

I did a very quick search on ehealthinsurance for a 41yo male in IL and it came out to $120/month with $5k deductible and 0% coinsurance and not HSA eligible. I didn't find anything HSA eligible with my brief search. This is about similar to free market costs in CA plus some inflation and age over the past few years. "Doctor prices" are somewhat lower in IL than CA and that's another important factor. It seems that coinsurance is often ignored in these online comparisons, but a non-zero coinsurance seems more likely to sink a FIRE plan than a high deductible.

With respect to the 0% co-insurance --
On many plans that I've seen, I think that is a function of the deductible being essentially the same thing as the annual out of pocket max value, so the co-insurance amount is irrelevant.

From what I've seen, all the ACA-compliant plans all have annual out-of-pocket-maximums (OOPMAX) that don't exceed much over 6000. (6850 seems to stick out in my mind as the maximum per person this year, in order to still be compliant with ACA. Or thereabouts...)

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

@jacob, what were your search terms? When I enter my info on ehealthinsurance it auto-estimates $163/mo as lowest cost, then tells me there are no plans available in my area.

[jacob]

@ML - My age, gender, zipcode, non-smoker, and qualifying event. It seems to be steering my into short-term coverages. Maybe ehealthinsurance isn't the place to go to anymore. I haven't looked into the IL exchange.

[Laura Ingalls]

Zero

[Allagash]

I don't think eheathinsurance will give you results of what's available until open enrollment period begins sometime in November. As far as I know $222/mo + $6,500 deductible was the very cheapest thing I could get as a WA State resident. There's no way I know to get health insurance any cheaper. Anyone has any ideas let me know. If I wanted a much lower say <$500 deductible I would be looking at more like $500/mo! Laura Ingalls and Chicago81 what are you currently paying for health insurance?

[Allagash]

Zero

How do you pay zero?

[Allagash]

What are you paying for health insurance Miss Lonelyhearts?

[Laura Ingalls]

Zero

How do you pay zero?

Live in a state that expanded medicaid have earned and unearned income below the threshold.

[OTCW]

$220/month with a 7k deductible. Blue Cross Blue Shield. Expecting it to be more like $350/month next year, and BCBS is no longer offering plans.

I am 44. No prescriptions. No health issues.

[Allagash]

$220/month with a 7k deductible. Blue Cross Blue Shield. Expecting it to be more like $350/month next year, and BCBS is no longer offering plans.

I am 44. No prescriptions. No health issues.

If it goes up to $350/mo with a $7k deductible for a single healthy 46 like me this year I'm going to freak. As self-employed people above the poverty line were are the ones ObamaCare is throwing in front of the bus to pay for the thing. My BCBS catastrophic plan hardly went up for an entire decade from 2002-2012 when I had it (stayed at around $100/mo with a $10k deductible for that whole time). Now with ObamaCare the healthcare premium inflation is skyrocketing annually. To me it doesn't matter if the deductible is $7k or $10k, your going to be paying for pretty much all your health care out of pocket anyway. I'll take the $100/mo premium with the $10k deductible over the $350/mo premium with the $7k deductible ANY DAY.

[OTCW]

The only good part about obamacare seems to be that they can't drop you or not renew you if you get sick like they could and usually did before.

[Allagash]

The only good part about obamacare seems to be that they can't drop you or not renew you if you get sick like they could and usually did before.

Yes that and I think OC also got rid of max coverage caps (that used to be like $1 million max). And for those two improvements premiums have skyrocketed. The people most affected are self-employed or retired under 65. If you are w-2 employed with a good company it is not as much of an issue because they pick up the bulk of the cost for OC.

My premium went up 76% the day OC went into effect. From my understanding though pre ACA insurance companies couldn't just drop you if you got sick. The issue was if you were sick and had no insurance, it could be then harder to get it depending on what you had. Because people would wait until they had a major issue, and then quick try to get coverage.

I have always looked at insurance of any type as something you have to protect against a big disaster that could wreck you financially. But people who have zero deductible health plans (that someone else pays for), go to the Dr. for every little tiny sneeze or ache or pain because someone else pays for it, thus driving up costs for everyone. And Dr.'s do too many costly tests they don't need to avoid law suites. Also, a very small number of people account for the vast majority of health care costs (80/20 rule). I think they should have incentives where if someone is below a certain weight, blood pressure, cholesteral, etc.. - they should get a reduced health premium. This would be a financial incentive for people to live healthier. So the healthy people wouldn't have to pay these huge premiums to pay for broke people who smoke 3 packs a day, drink a 6 pack a day, don't exercise, and live off cheetos and pizza.

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

I pay $198 per month with BCBS of Illinois for 0% coinsurance and either a $6k or $6.5k deductible. Under-30 male non-smoker.

Edit: @chicago81- interesting! It appears you're right: see Healhcare.gov: Coinsurance This could be useful to lower the monthly nut by a little bit.

[OTCW]

From my understanding though pre ACA insurance companies couldn't just drop you if you got sick. The issue was if you were sick and had no insurance, it could be then harder to get it depending on what you had.

Semantics I suppose. They couldn't drop you during the year, but they could choose not to renew you for the next year. Even not for profits like BCBS did that.

[Allagash]

I pay $198 per month with BCBS of Illinois for 0% coinsurance and either a $6k or $6.5k deductible. Under-30 male non-smoker.

Edit: @chicago81- interesting! It appears you're right: see Healhcare.gov: Coinsurance This could be useful to lower the monthly nut by a little bit.

So Jacob would probably be paying about $220/mo in IL for health insurance right now if he was single (possibly a lot more next year). That would constitute 37% of the $7,000 a year he spent when he was single! Marrying a lady with a decent W-2 job with health insurance can be part of a smart ERE plan