Suck it, High-Deductible Health Plan

"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78) 05/05/2016 at 12:25 • Filed to: None

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I won’t go on my FULL rant about healthcare, but suffice it to say my new employer intentionally obscured a lot of key information about our health benefits, so we ended up going with a high-deductible plan (family of four). It was the least of three evils. We knew my wife was going in for minor surgery only a few days after coverage started, so we knew we would probably hit our deductible almost immediately. Then we get 80% coverage for a while, then 100% COVERAGE of ALL doctor visits, prescriptions, labs, just about everything. So I’m going to the doctor for EVERY SINGLE THING for the last half of the year (while I slowly pay off our thousands of dollars in medical bills via an HSA). I don’t believe these “out of pocket maximum” numbers are supposed to be gamed like this. But life’s a dirty game. You gotta play dirty to win it. -Harris

JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:27

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/avoids going into his full rant about healthcare, but knows what you mean.

PatBateman > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:31

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Time to get snipped! WOOHOO!!

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:31

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I have effectively the same plan. Huge deductible, in exchange for 80% up to a relatively low max out-of-pocket. But yeah, you have to spend a fortune just to get there... lots of “preventative” things are actually not covered, or have many hidden stipulations (age, etc.).

It’s basically just catastrophic insurance. I don’t go to the doctor unless I’m legally dead.

Dru > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:32

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Can anyone open an HSA or do you have to qualify for one?

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:33

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Same boat here, and it’s industry standard. This is not insurance anymore, it’s just a slightly more tax friendly way to pay for your own medical costs. When I started working in 1998 I had nearly 100% coverage on an HMO, which actually didn’t suck at all. Now it’s $500 a month out of pocket for my family of 4 and a $3,000 deductible for each of us with a $6,000 max deductible for the year. This is not insurance.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > PatBateman 05/05/2016 at 12:34

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I support this

Ash78, voting early and often > Dru 05/05/2016 at 12:35

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You have to be currently enrolled in an "official" high-deductible health plan to open an HSA and make contributions, but I believe you can keep the HSA even in later years if you switch back to a full coverage plan. Assuming those even exist in a few years...

MUSASHI66 > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:35

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Probably not the best time to say that I pay $73 per month for health, dental and vision and I think my max out of pocket is 2 or 3k.... I’ll probably be adding my wife soon and it will go up by $160 or so.

WRXasaurus > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 05/05/2016 at 12:36

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Same here, the crazy part about mine is that prenatal isn’t covered, nor is postnatal. My wife and I just had a boy in December and paid over 5 grand out of pocket. Screw medical insurance.

Ash78, voting early and often > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 05/05/2016 at 12:37

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That’s about right. I’m at a Fortune 50 company and they say this is the norm among big companies. $400/mo premiums with a deductible of $2k just for me, but $4k for everyone (collectively or individually). OOP Max is $6k, so that’s what we’re aiming for, sadly. What's hard for me is coming directly from a much smaller employer where I had a 90/10 plan with a $750 deductible.

Dru > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:41

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I see. Would have been a great vehicle for unexpected medical expenses down the road. But my employer has a $2,500 individual deductible and around $5,000 family (I only have the individual), but they reimburse up to $2,000 themselves, after you pay the first $500 out of pocket.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > WRXasaurus 05/05/2016 at 12:41

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On our plan, mammograms are covered... if you’re over 50. So your can get checked for cancer after you’ve likely already got cancer

WRXasaurus > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 05/05/2016 at 12:45

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That is God awful. Thankfully vaccinations are covered cause damn they are expensive. Like over a grand per round of them.

CalzoneGolem > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:45

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I just came to say that FSA’s are dumb and HSA’s are way better.

Ash78, voting early and often > MUSASHI66 05/05/2016 at 12:45

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No worries, I've been there too! I've paid anywhere from zero to $500/mo for just the two of us. And out of pocket maxes didn't even used to be a concern, since virtually 100% of everything was covered. You just paid $25 at the doctor or $100 at the hospital. That was literally just 5-7 years ago on a lot of plans.

Dr_Watson > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:45

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Yep sounds exactly like my shitty health plan (only my corporate overlords don’t give options, it’s shit or nothing). It’s great that my wife also has a ($300/mo) medication they don’t want to cover so we max the $3k deductible without even trying.

Woo! America!

MUSASHI66 > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 12:46

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They have to make their billions somehow, and executives need those golden parachutes!

Ash78, voting early and often > CalzoneGolem 05/05/2016 at 12:47

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When I was on a better coverage plan, I loved my FSA. And when I left my employer 3 months into the year, I spent almost my entire annual contribution in the last week (contacts, dentist, etc). You are not liable for overspending, which is an insane policy. There are benefits, and most people are simply not allowed to do both.

Dr_Watson > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 05/05/2016 at 12:51

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Yeah it reminds me of the “accident insurance” colleges used to sell students (before kids were leeching parents policy til 26).

Hard to believe that I had a company supplied PPO with a $500 deductible. Which was actually a benefit since I paid zero into it. Consequently I’m soooo happy my L5S1 disc exploded while I worked there... I got back surgery for $500. That’s awesome.

Chariotoflove > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 13:04

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I’l say it again: whatever the downsides of government employment, the healthcare benefits can’t be beat.

jariten1781 > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 13:06

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Our company had traditionally always covered everything, but the last 7 years have just been killer. We’ve had to go from a fully paid full coverage PPO to a monthly employee cost and buffet of deductible option pseudo PPOs. It’s not the rising cost of services either, it’s added administration and less flexibility in defining coverage. Our payouts for services definitely grew, but the projections we had back in 08 looked like we’d be able to take it out of corporate funds and have the shareholders eat it. With all the crap that was laid on top of the services that was just not tenable so not only did we take ~150% of the projected costs out of the bottom line, but now the employees have to bear some as well. It’s bad, but it looks like things are starting to settle...2015 was pretty close to 2014 with minimal increases in non-services so we should be steady state going forward if people stop futzing around with the gears.

Luc - The Acadian Oppo > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 13:11

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Let’s see...this year I paid zero. Last year also zero and the 30 years before that also zero. Man what a terrible place to live Canada is.

Aaron M - MasoFiST > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 13:21

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I pay $180 a month for health, vision and dental...but it’s a comprehensive plan with a $500 deductible. Now that I’m thinking of it, there’s really no financial reason not to schedule appointments with an allergist (it’s also a PPO, so no primary care referrals needed for seeing specialists).

BigBlock440 > jariten1781 05/05/2016 at 13:29

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So you didn’t save $2,500 per year?

Ash78, voting early and often > Luc - The Acadian Oppo 05/05/2016 at 13:30

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Don't even get me started on that...I work with numerous Canadian expats who are very happy with their 30% raises in exchange for a few thousand in healthcare costs :D

TheRealBicycleBuck > Ash78, voting early and often 05/05/2016 at 14:13

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After being nearly bankrupted after I had to have emergency surgery and my wife injured her back, when the opportunity for us to get double-coverage came along, we jumped on it. With the bulk of the premium costs being covered by our employers, our out-of-pocket costs are lower than the deductibles for either plan. The two policies coordinate benefits, so the deductible cost from one plan is covered by the other. We only have issues when neither policy provides coverage like with some prescriptions. That’s when the HSA kicks in.

Ash78, voting early and often > TheRealBicycleBuck 05/05/2016 at 14:16

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The system definitely favors both parents working, which is another pet peeve of mine (for example, you can deduct childcare expenses, but I can't because the government deems my wife's work/errands/duties to be less important than earning a wage at an external employer, even though she is technically freeing up a job for someone else and helping lower the unemployment rate...). But hey, employers can do what they want to do — covering the bulk of their workers' healthcare is just part of that.