Who do you get your health insurance from?

[ananas]

And what is the monthly cost for your family (+how many people?). Can you tell me a little bit about them?

I'm :

[starry_mama]

We have Harvard Pilgrim, and DH's work pays for most of it. I believe we pay about $15 a paycheck, which is about $30 a month. Its not great, but its very cheap, so I try not to complain about it.

Oh yea, we have 4 in our family, soon to be 5. Our plan is a "family plan" so it doesn't matter how many babies we have, it will stay the same. Our co-pays are $20. The co-pays for prescriptions are kind of complicated (there is an entire book about it, its called the 3-tier system or something) but we have never had to get a prescription, so I don't know the details.

[transformed]

satan. :

Ours is Cigna PPO, and it costs about $550 a month through a group insurance plan for our family of 4.

But we also have to pay cash ALL the time because the ins. doesnt cover stuff and I told dh to cancel it as soon as the baby is born.

I need to spend my efforts on wellness...and I have no money left after the stupid insurance takes all of it.

[EFmom]

I've got CDPHP through my employer and my cost is about $38/month. My employer obviously picks up the bulk of the cost.

My family has Empire Blue through dh's employer. It costs about $150/month. I could drop my coverage and just use dh's, but mine is stellar and I have medical issues.

[Romana]

I have BCBS through work. My monthly premium is covered by my employer. However, if I were to have a family plan covering all of us, it would cost more than $1000/month (from our pockets), since my employer does not cover anything for family members.

So, dh and dd have individual policies. Dh has a bare-bones policy through BCBS that costs about $100/mo. Dd has a nicer policy (we can pick doctors, etc.) through Humana for about $100/mo. Both have high deductibles (at least $1,000). Even my plan through work has a $1,000 deductible. I'm lucky I'm paid for because I'm essentially uninsurable through individual insurance.

For dh and dd's policies, almost everything is applied to the deductible, except for well-baby visit office copays. For example, when dd needed an emergency room visit for a dislocated elbow, the entire cost was applied to the deductible and we had to pay it all.

Worst case scenario, we could easily end up paying $10,000 or more in a single year in out of pocket costs. Fortunately, nothing that dramatic has happened yet. Birth is expensive, though.

When our new baby is born, of course, we'll have to add him/her at a cost of about another $100/mo.

I pay a lot and get little in return. It's basically just there in case something catastrophic happens. So far, the insurance companies are really winning this bet.

ETA: No dental. Too expensive, and covers essentially zip.

[angelpie545]

We are currently applying for Washington Basic Health, which is program designed for low-income residents that make too much to qualify for medicaid. Our premiums will be based on our income. I'm not sure how good the insurance is, but at least it's insurance. It would cost us an arm and a leg if we went through dh's work.

[Juliacat]

I have an individual plan from BCBS. It costs a bit over $300 a month for three people, including dental. We just have a copay for routine office visits, which is mostly what we use it for, so it works out. The deductible is very high but it will still cushion us from the worst part of a catastrophic medical condition.

[KMK_Mama]

We have Lifewise through DH's work. His employer pays for *some* of HIS, but none for the family so out of pocket we pay almost $900/month. : It's crazy expensive AND we have some crazy high deductible so it seems like they don't pay for much. I have accrued over $1000 in medical bills just this month. : If we could we would get individual plans, but nobody will take me because of my pre-existing conditions. Lifewise sucks.

[polyhymnia]

To the end of this year we have United Healthcare Choice Plus. I really like them. The coverage is awesome and it's free (DP's company pays all premiums). starting in 2008 though this is all changing and I will have Aetna and I am not nearly as pleased... I'll have deductibles and coinsurance to deal with as well as copays for visits and scripts are nearly doubling. UGH.

I think it will be about $20 per pay period pre-tax - so about $40/month.

[TranscendentalMom]

Wow! I was expecting to find a deal on here but why am I not surprised.

We have Assurant Health in NC. We pay $415 per month for a family of 4and have a whole family deductible at the low low cost of $7500. Its basically useless. I'd get rid of it but when we had nothing I couldn't sleep at night sometimes.

For those who can't afford insurance, I would get a Health Savings Account. Its tax deductible and the money is yours. If I had to pay $900 per month I would just put it in an HSA and pray nothing catasrophic happened.

I find it hilarious that people talk about how expensive healthcare would be if we had socialized medicine. Most countries have better to the same care and it only costs them around $5000 per family per year in taxes. In our country it costs an avg of $10,000 per year. And we have lousy care. Insurance companies that get to decide whether people get surgery or not.

SUPPORT H.R. 676 UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE FOR ALL!!!! AMERICANS ARE SICK OF HAVING NO HEALTHCARE!

p.s. If you need someone to help you research the plans out there, we used Nadine Cohen with Sidha National Insurance. She is very knowledgeable and will get you the best deal out there. She's in Iowa but knows the plans in each state. call her at 641.472.5700 (ask for her 800 number when you call, i know she has one but i don't know it)

[mammastar2]

Wow. I didn't realize that even insured Americans pay so much!

I'm in Canada. My province actually does have premiums, which are income-based, so it's not totally free. The max here is $900 per year per taxpayer, but I believe that is for individuals who earn about 90K/year. Doesn't include the cost of prescriptions, dental, etc, which are covered through my extended health at work.

Just wow.

[EricaE]

I have Providence Health insurance and I pay about $40 a paycheck ($80 a month) for my whole family. It's really good insurance - I feel blessed to have a job that offers good, cheap medical, vision and dental insurance.

[Pyrodjm]

We have Oxford through my job. One of the main reasons I took this position was the health insurance. It is amazing. It cost us $1 a month in premiums for the entire family (including and children we may have), $5 co-pays for visits to any doctors and $5 for generic prescriptions $15 for non-generic. We are not required to have a PCP. I can go straight to my allergist when I need to and DH can go straight to the rhumatologist and chiropractor. I love Oxford, I have access to many quality doctors right in my area.

I quit my last job when I found that my premiums for Oxford would jump from $20 monthly to $560 monthly if I added DH.

[alicia622]

I have BCBS through work. I have to pay 40 a month for the HMO plan. DH has Aetna through his work and he is fully covered through the benefits package. We have 20 and 25 dollar copays and terrible prescription coverage (20-50 a month per script). DS is covered by MaineCare as he was adopted through the foster system and his MC stays with him through age 18. I am very pleased about that because it would cost us between 400 and 500 a month to add him to one of our plans and the coverage is much better (and NO copays!!!)

[AEZMama]

We have a policy we found online that uses AIG. It's about $200 p/m for all 3 of us which is fine for now, but if ds has to have surgery for his cleft palate we might have a problem. Hospital coverage is $10K then a % on anything over that.

The only thing that sucks is that we have had to fill out claims forms for every trip to the dr we take. : But we're insured, and that takes a load off since ds has multiple issues.

[lillian]

we have a family PPO plan through BCBS for our family of 5. it costs us 70/pay period (every 2 weeks) and is highly subsidized through dh's employer. it has a $10 copay for office visits and an 80/20 plan for major things.

[Peony]

We pay over 400 a month for 4 of us (can't remember the exact amount, they keep jacking it up every couple months) for what boils down to major medical, I think it's Golden Rule. No maternity, in fact in 6 years we hadn't used it once because they don't cover a darned thing until we met our very high deductible. I am very glad we had it though with DD2, she was very ill as a baby, and now she has a a dx of chronic lung disease in her chart, no insurance company would touch us with a ten foot pole if we didn't already have a policy. Insurance sucks. :

[bright-midnight]

We have Aetna PPO family plan through DH's work. I think we pay around $275 a month for three people. They have fairly good coverage, I think our co-pays are $15.

[katheek77]

The military.

No premiums or copays except on prescriptions for me and DD...those are 3 dollars a piece.

[MidwifeErika]

We have Humana. Right now we have a high deductable and a HSA, but it is costing us a huge load of money due to a very accident prone little boy! So, the start of the year we will be switching over to a slightly better Humana plan. I think it will be about $300/month for our family through my husband's work. It isn't the best coverage in the world, but I have had lots worse! We went without insurance for about a year and I never want to do that again. My younger sister had cancer this year at the ripe old age of 23, after watching her deal with that I never want to be without coverage again..... just incase.