How much do you pay for health insurance?

[Ygle]

I'm just curious what other families pay... we are looking at $710/mo (before taxes at least, that's one good thing) for $1000 per person deductible and then 80/20 in network and this is just for me and the kids through a group plan.  Unfortunately I can't get individual now because of preexisting conditions (although even though my daughter has a medical condition they can no longer exclude kids, but I can't enroll her until an open enrollment period and some companies are no longer accepting at all so not sure what's going to happen come August).... I'm starting to think we should not pay, I know we've had more than one experience where we would've been better off with no insurance, but then there have been times where the insurance contracted rates were only a tenth of the regular rates (like my dh surgery we were billed over $15,000 for but once they sent it through insurance their rate was only $1500).  I can't figure out what to do... between our out of pocket costs and our premiums we are paying more for health insurance than our mortgage and it's killing me, especially since our coverage is so junky... but I don't think we can afford not to have it... aaaahhhhh!!  It's almost to the point where my dh is working half the year just to pay for health insurance and medical costs! 

Anyways, I'm just itching to know what others are paying?

[BetsyS]

We have group coverage through my dh's employer.  We pay $135/2 weeks, so $292/month.

That is for family coverage with a $4500 family deductible (it all goes in the same pot; no individual deductibles), then 80/20 coverage up to an out of pocket of $10,000 for the year.  The plan also covers well visits at 100%, as well as vaccines.

[laohaire]

Our plan costs $900 a month for a family plan (me, DH and DD; it would cover more children at the same cost), $1000 individual deductible/$2500 family deductible.

Health care is a freaking crime.

[ChristyMarie]

I believe we're at about $1300/month.  BCBS PPO with $1000 pp deductible.  I have a policy for me and DS and DH has a separate policy because of pre-existing conditions.

[Alyantavid]

We pay $260 a month for our family through my work.  It has a $1000 deductible per person and doesn't cover anything until then.  There is a prescription plan as well.

We also pay about $60 a month through dh's work for dental and accident insurance.  That insurance is turning out to be much more beneficial than mine.

[Addie]

We are paying $265/month (pre-tax) for the three of us on DH's plan though work. PPO, $250/$500 individual/family deductible, $1500/$3000 individual/family out-of-pocket maximum. No co-pay for preventative visits (WBVs,etc), $20 co-pay otherwise. Dental and prescription are separate but pretty cheap. DH is full-time staff at a university and the benefits are good, and we're pretty run-of-the-mill folks, medically speaking (no pre-existing conditions, etc).

[Caneel]

At my company, the monthly costs are:

Single - $315, $250 deductible

Two-party (H & W or parent & one child) - $631, $500 deductible

Family - $863, $750 deductible

The company pays 75% of the cost, the employees pick up the balance

[JudiAU]

I work at a law firm with a very good policy. But my costs have quadrupled in the last 10+ years working here because of premium increases and going from a single to a family, including DH> I pay around $600 pre-tax for my share. The policy is very good, low co-pays, no deductible, paid around a $1000 for all prenatal and hospital birth includes all the goodies like IVF if I needed it. It was much less but I got a small raise and I got pushed into the next tier of premiums so I pay with the big guys. People with smaller salaries pay much much less.\ This year it dropped from 90/10 to 80/20 so I dropped our level of coverage to a different plan that did have the 90/10.

I would never ever willingly go without health insurance for my family.

[Ygle]

Originally Posted by JudiAU 

I would never ever willingly go without health insurance for my family.

I used to have that philosophy so ten years ago we were paying $840/mo through a group plan even though we could not afford it, but I didn't even consider it a choice so we ended up in serious debt with all our credit cards maxed out just to pay for groceries, etc.  Because of that experience I'm very wary to go through it again, even though we are in a much better situation financially now.  Now we actually have the money to pay for it, but only by keeping a very tight rein on the budget and we would not be able to put money aside for repairs/emergencies.  I know it's insurance but unfortunately I've found all too frequently there's no insurance with insurance (like when they dropped their full coverage for pregnancies while I was in the middle of a pregnancy -we had planned our oop to be around $10, with the change and because of global billing it cost us closer to $6000 which we had to come up with in 2 months... or when my daughter needed medication we found out one of the changes was a $10000 rx deductible for self injections, if we had no insurance we could've gotten for free, but because we had insurance we would've had to pay $1500/mo which we could not do... or when we weren't worried about going to ER because we had a $250 copay, turns out it was a copay in addition to us paying all the costs.... or having planned out and saved and arranged for all our med needs through this next year based on one plan and now that plan is gone.... and who knows what is going to happen in the next couple of years, it seems like nobody knows at this point!)  I'm very conflicted at this point.   

[Ygle]

Originally Posted by laohaire 
Health care is a freaking crime.

Yes, and it's just maddening to me the challenges in trying to get costs or plan ahead or how variable the costs for everything is (an office visit charge was $95 with one plan, $165 with another and $275 with no plan, oh, but they give me a 10% self pay discount and for some reason they can't just give you this information so you can actually make an informed decision and plan these things out, argh!  I only know this one example because of an error where my bill got sent to the wrong insurance).

[MyTwoAs]

$260/mo for family coverage 

HSA w/$3k deductible and my husband's company made $2k in contributions directly into the HSA.  Once the deductible is met everything is paid at 100% including prescriptions.  Well-visits and preventative medicine is paid at 100% from the start.

[greenemami]

I pay ~250 per month for myself and two children including very basic dental and rx coverage but I think a 5000 deductible and $30 copay.  It is an individual policy (I am self-employed.) We are very lucky to be healthy, so this works for us for now. I feel like all insurance is kind of a gamble, KWIM?

eta: I was without health insurance from just after I had dd to just after I had ds (3 years, dd had insurance during that time though) including my pregnancy.  It was stressful and I would try to keep at least a minimum "safety net" policy if at all possible.  Also, I always plan to have insurance for my kids even if I don't have it for myself.

[its_betty]

I'm self employed, and my son and I are on a private high deductible plan: $315/month. Dh is currently on COBRA (at $320/month). We are looking into private insurance for dh once COBRA is done, and it is likely to run in the $500/month range if he can get coverage with his pre-existing conditions. We are working with a health insurance broker (she is one of my clients), which helps a lot in understanding the plans. If dh is denied coverage from a private company, we may be able to sign him up for a state plan (which will still cost $$$ but at least he'll have coverage).

I'm lucky enough to be able to afford insurance. The cost of insurance is sky-high, but nothing compared to the financial catastrophe an accident or major illness would cause my family if we were uninsured. Because I choose to keep my insurance premiums down, there are plenty of things my insurance does not cover. But at least we won't go bankrupt if someone breaks a leg. (Knock wood!)

[beebalmmama]

We were paying $700+ with dh's group insurance through work. I believe it had a $200 individual deductible and a $1500 family deductible. We could barely and really couldn't afford it. But he transfered jobs when I was pregnant. Once open enrollment came around I dropped me and the boys off of it.

I have private insurance which has a $180 premium and a $2000 deductible.

We applied for the boys to get on CHP+. It was a little scary having them uninsured for 6 months but they were finally accepted. So I think this is where will be until I finish school in the next few years.

So now we pay $50 through Dh's work for vision/dental. He doesn't have any premiums for his health insurance and now has a $200 deductible and then 80/20.

I have dental and vision through his work and then my premium of $180. So total of $230 a month right now.

[enkmom]

$1200/month for myself, dh and our son.  Our daughter works full-time and has her own policy that costs her $21/week.  My husband is a partner in a law firm, and they offer insurance to their employees, picking up most of the cost.  The group is very small, though so our premiums are very high.  We were paying $1500, but the firm switched to a PPO plan with Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

[eclipse]

We have really good, relatively inexpensive, coverage through dh's work. I think it's some thing like $100 every 2 weeks (so $200/mo) and that includes dental and vision. We have a $20 copay for primary care and $35 for specialists, no deductible. He works at a pharmacy, so all our rx's come through them and are very reasonable - for generics it's (I think)$7.50 for one month or $15 for 3 months. I know it's more for name brand, but I don't remember how much.

We live in Mexico (though dh works and our insurance is in the US) and health care and rxs are very cheap here (most medications don't require a rx, unless it's a narcotic), so if we had higher insurance costs, we'd probably get are care and meds here.

[frugalmum]

We pay about $8500/ year for all of us-- that includes a basic plan (dr/ hosp, $1000 deductable for hospitalization, no dental or prescription, $20 co pay for visits, very strict referral system) for husband and me, but the kids have comprehensive coverage with no co pay (no glasses or braces though).  It's right at the edge of what I consider affordable since in some years we have accumulated an additional $1000 obligation from hospitalizations.  I'm very concerned about premiums going up.  The new legislation made our premiums spike 30% with no increase in coverage.

[trekkingirl]

I had no idea how good I have it. I live in California and we have Kaiser. It's all inclusive, meaning I go to a kaiser hospital only and go to a kaiser doctors office only. Any non kaiser hospitals or doctors aren't covered. The care is pretty good. My birth was $100 with a three day stay and then my dd had to come back for photo therapy for jaundice and that was  100 % covered.

My highest co pay at doctor visits is $20. My dh is in the union so his union pays for the health insurance he just has to pay union dues of $45 per month. We are a family of four so I guess we pay $45 a mo for insurance but it's really union dues.

He also has dental that pays 80% up to $2000 a year. With two free cleanings per year. The vision insurance pays $100 for frames and covers the exam. We were able to get transition lenses too.

[Sharlla]

through work it would be $700 for the family.  i cant afford that, that's over 2x our mortgage payment!

[Owen'nZoe]

I pay $360/mo for health (PPO), plus $70/mo for dental (also PPO), (so $430/month).

Family deductible: $800 in network / $1425 out

Out of Pocket limit: $4000 in / $9000 out

Copay: $20, $30, or $75, depending on the type of doctor you're seeing

Prescriptions: Copays seem to run $30 - $50 each (and of course the one prescription we buy monthly is a $50 one)