Health insurance plans.

"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
10/22/2020 at 20:28 • Filed to: i had ice cream for lunch so maybe i should take this more seriously

It’s that time again. I gotta pick my desired health insurance plan offered by my employer. Sorting through all the fluff and plans, I am down to two, let’s call them plan X and plan Y. Plan X has a 60% lower deductible and out-of-pocket max than Plan Y, but plan X also has a 56% higher premium.

You know what, I had just written two more paragraphs but in doing so I think I answered my own question. Not gonna go with the higher premium, on top of my now-higher mortgage payment due to the upward assessment of my prahpertee VALYOOS — plus economic uncertainly, PLUS my virtual certainly that I will make less in 2021, so, yeah. Keep those overhead costs down. I need to scrap together those meager savings for a Paseo convertible, after all.

DISCUSSION (21)

PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120 > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 20:37

Thanks for bringing us up to speed on the Zoidberg household goings on. Also, selecting insurance plans is such a pain. It's worse to change providers due to a job change and then find out you get to find new doctors.

CB > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 20:41

Meanwhile, I’m being a lazy asshole who has a three year physical to book and still hasn’t done it. I am somehow less annoyed at my problems.

Keep your stick on the ice, bud.

Khalbali > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 20:43

Just find a nice union gig! I'm not actually even in the union but I work for a contractor and all of our laborers are so I get the same benefits, no premiums at all and it's good coverage, only downside is no vision or life, just medical dental.

GoodIdeaAtTheTime > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 20:47

I have to drop my current work offered insurance as it does not meet my health requirements . Will have to strike out on my own.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 20:54

I usually never get a choice, but the only I option I have is always comparatively good. One of the last bastions of government employee perks, besides a real pension someday, is having the kind of health plan most folks in the private sector probably haven’t had since the 90's. Most years I don’t use it for more than my annual physical, but my currently broken arm makes me glad it is there. My grand total out of pocket for a late -n ight ER visit, two full sets of the x-rays and two orthopedic follow ups will come out to $240.

PowderHound > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 20:56

As someone who doesn’t go to the doctor unless a bone is sticking out of my skin, high deductible with an hsa all day. I should probably make a list of the things I think are not right and go to a doctor one of these days.

subexpression > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 20:59

I pretty much always end up on the cheapest insurance plans offered for health, dental, and vision. The only one of those where I usually spend much is vision because of my prescription , but most places I’ve been only offered one vision plan anyway .

66P1800inpieces > CB
10/22/2020 at 21:01

If you are too lazy for the full physical see if your doc will let you come in for just the bloodwork and other labs like cholesterol . Fast the night before, go in real early and at least you can get an idea about stuff.

ranwhenparked > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 21:04

I’m single and haven’t had a health insurance claim, outside of routine checkups and the like, in about 18 years, so I always just go with whatever the cheapest option is and max out the HSA to use for any deductibles, which is always still sitting there at the end of the year. My first job out of college initially had no options and was just a crazy cheap, crazy generous plan, which they offered as an unspoken tradeoff in the nonprofit sector - crappy salary, offset by good benefits. Well, that changed when the Boy Scouts of America started their final death spiral toward bankruptcy, the salary stayed low, and the health plans got crappier and more expensive every year, so I eventually started going with whatever the cheapest option was and have stuck with that at all jobs since.

CB > 66P1800inpieces
10/22/2020 at 21:05

Can’t cheat this one, it’s for work.

just-a-scratch > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 21:16

Kinja'd!!!

Health insurance, I have the guy to find you a very cheap plan.

Nick Has an Exocet > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 21:35

I got a letter from the IRS this week saying “our records don’t match your return” in regards to my health insurance from last year. Turbotax did an auto-import and apparently shifted some of the columns. This lead to me further confirming my suspicions about S tate health insurance connectors being a complete scam to get more people to buy overpriced garbage plans.

Last year, I spent 9 months unemployed. When I lost my employment, I went Covered California. I entered my 3 months of salary, my unemployment amount, and it showed me some options. They sucked, but coverage is coverage and the state estimated a tax credit for me that brought most all of the plans under $100/mo. After taking a plan that was about $70/mo after credits, I got a call saying that they recalculated and that it would $1/mo.

That works for me!

Come time to file my taxes, the feds ask for 100% of that back.

So I end up having to pay about $5k in taxes for 6 months of bottom-of-the-barrel health insurance.

Complete freaking bait-and-switch scam.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > GoodIdeaAtTheTime
10/22/2020 at 21:36

Brutal.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Nick Has an Exocet
10/22/2020 at 21:39

How is this legal? I suppose it was somehow you're responsibility to know you were underpaying even though you'd have no way to determine that

Kiltedpadre > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
10/22/2020 at 22:07

If that were still the case with Ohio public sector jobs I probably wouldn’t have been so quick to jump at the chance to go private sector. Both those jobs certainly met the crap pay portion of the spectrum, but the insurance was a complete joke too. At one of the two places the only option they offered for dental was a package put together for them by 5 area dentists, it was only usable at their offices, and other than the regular cleanings anything else you had done was a 90/10 split.

Now, my current premiums are offset by working for a private company as a contractor on a military base. With that help my premiums are leas than half what they were as a city/county employee for exponentially better coverage.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 22:09

I am grateful to live in a socialist economy...

Tekamul > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 22:30

G ood luck, just know what ever choice you make will be the wrong one. There is no good choice in US healthcare.

Nick Has an Exocet > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 22:48

Yep, but in order to know that I was overpaying, I would have had to go through the process of mock-filing my taxes so that I could have my full return #’s to enter into the insurance credit calculation form at the end of the taxes.

If I were paranoid, I’d say that it’s a scam to get more people in the grips of the insurance empire.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Kiltedpadre
10/22/2020 at 23:41

Fortunately , public employees and public employee unions are still a force in NM politics, and in a long-time democratic controlled state. The gutting of public employee benefits that happened across so much of the mid-west hasn’t been a thing here, even if it isn’t as good as it once was. New Mexico is a state where government jobs are the jobs of choice, in part because the private sector is so small here.

MrSnrub > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/22/2020 at 23:47

It could be worse, if those liberal communist nutjobs like Bernie and AOC had their way you wouldn’t be allowed to make all these fun choices, you’d just have healthcare like some kind of Stalinist nightmare.

jminer > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com
10/23/2020 at 01:26

This is the worst part of my job change. Moving from a public sector gig with amazing and cheap insurance to a for-profit place with crappy expensive insurance.

I’m moving to California with the new gig so I’ll deal though.