Ask the Readers: How Much Do You Spend on Health Insurance?
Published on - December 16th, 2011 (by J.D. Roth) Behind the scenes, the GRS elves and I have been working to streamline the process for submitting reader stories, guest posts, and financial questions. As part of this, I’ve been reading through every question submitted over the past year. I’ve noticed some patterns.
One topic I’m seeing over and over again is health insurance. We’ve explored health insurance a few times in the past, but we don’t do so often. For one, it’s complicated. For another, it’s boring. But even boring, complicated subjects deserve their day in the sun, right?
Over the next few months, I hope to explore health insurance in a little more detail. Today, though, I thought it would be useful (and informative) to do an informal survey. Today, I want to know: How much do you spend on health insurance?
More specifically:
- Where do you get your health insurance coverage? From an employer? From the government of the country where you live?
- What sort of coverage do you have? Do you wish you had more? Less? What are the pros and cons of your coverage?
- How much do you pay per month? Do you know how much your employer pays? What sorts of co-payments do you have?
I’m especially interested to hear from those who have picked up health insurance on their own. What do you do if you’re self-employed and don’t have access to an employer-sponsored plan? (This is a common question in my inbox, and I know many people are looking for an answer.)
Please note that I don’t want this to turn into a debate over socialized medicine. There’s no need. Instead, this is a chance for folks to compare their situation with others. (Previously, we’ve conducted similar surveys for spending on food, clothes, and gifts.) Now it’s time to share: How much do you spend on health insurance? What kind of coverage do you have, and where do you get it?
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We live in Switzerland. All insurance here is private and individual, with a mandated basic package and optional extra-cost coverage (for example, semi-private room vs. ward).
Premiums depend on age. I am 59 and my wife 55. Together our premium for both basic and optional coverages is US$750/month.
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I just bought health insurance (sunlife)that covers women’s typical health risks, such as cervical/breast cancer. It feels good to have this kind of insurance because ur confident that what ever happens in the future you are secured. FYI, my insurance also have investments features for my retirement(my principal purpose of buying this insurance, actually).. It costs $1,400 p.a. just enough for my spare cash..
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I carry the insurance as my husband is currently unemployed. My employer (<300 bed independent hospital) works hard to manage costs to keep health benefits affordable for employees and to provide options rather than "one size fits all" and I appreciate their efforts. As a half-time employee (striving for full time, but that's another story), the choices were high, medium and low deductible. I did the math and surprised myself by going with the low deductible ($435/mo for family). The total cost difference between high and low for me was $4000 for the year, based on best estimates of expenses.
This new way of managing health expenses has forced me to examine choices and needs, and not to assume a test or prescription is necessarily the right choice just because the doctor said so. I now have a bigger stake in the game.
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This is such an interesting topic and is really making me think and wonder… I know it’s late in the commenting, but I’d love to know what *percentage* of your income you pay in health insurance. I realize this can be tricky to calculate, if it is deducted automatically from your paycheck. Also, some people have their employer kick in part of the premium, so if your portion and the employer portion are added together, what is the total premium?
I’m finding myself floored by the huge amounts some folks are paying each month. And so I’m wondering if you must have an awfully high salary, to be able to support such an expense.
It would also be interesting to know what folks pay out of pocket as a percentage of income, or the total healthcare costs of insurance and out of pocket (up to the deductible, co-insurance, out of network, prescriptions, the whole shebang)…
How are healthcare costs rising, relative to incomes increasing? And how close are people to being at the point of not being able to afford health insurance? Where you have to make choices between food/shelter/basics vs health insurance. JD, I apologize if this is veering off-topic. It is info I’m interested in, but maybe you are saving it for a future post?
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I guess our insurance takes around 33% of our income.It leaves us with $1,222 bring home a month.
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$260/Month for Family Coverage through employer – $2K Deductible – split by company & me. 80/20 after that. $6K Out of Pocket Maxiumum
I think a ‘Summary post’ of the replies would be helpful.
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I am not Canadian, just US citizen. My employer pays for my health care plan, but my wife is unemployed so we pay for hers. We both are on a high deductible plan of $4,800 that costs about $340/month in premiums, plus we set aside $120/month pre tax into a health savings account and my company also puts in $120/month. We are both young so we don’t access that money often, just to pay for doctors visits and prescriptions (that are low cost) so the account has grown to where we can afford to pay the entire deductible, emergency savings would cover the rest to the maximum out of pocket costs for the plan year.
Pros (for us): We keep what we don’t spend, premiums are lower than traditional plan, no referral requirements or prescription requirements (I can see who I want when I want without a battle with an HMO)
Cons: Financial exposure while growing HSA, pay all costs up to deductible, splits the emergency savings picture a little.
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My expenses are that I work in a job that pays a little less than what I could otherwise make, and I don’t get to work from home. For that trade-off, I get paid health insurance, plus dental and optometry services, and a pension. My job may not be everyone’s sexy dream job, but it pays the bills nicely.
Health insurance is mission critical to me, since despite my fairly healthy lifestyle I do indeed have BRCA2 gene, (which is a cancer gene, guys and you are not off the hook) and I will without a doubt develop some form of cancer some day.
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I’d love a post about how to get health insurance when you have a relatively minor, pre-existing condition.
The best example of how this can be a really difficult situation is Dooce (a.k.a. Heather Armstrong, dooce.com), who has suffered from depression and was thusly rejected from most every health insurance she applied for.
A lot of people have some ongoing “illness,” which can make individual health insurance either impossible to get or void when it comes to payment.
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Every state has an insurance plan for the uninsured. Contact your state government and ask. It will be rather expensive, but it is worth it.
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We have chosen the high-deductible plan from my employer. I consider it to be excellent insurance. For a family of four, we pay $0 in monthly premiums, our deductible is $3000, and then we pay 10% until we reach our annual out-of-pocket max which is $5000. Preventative care is covered 100%. In good years, we might end up paying nothing for health care, and even in the worst of years, we pay at most $5000. All of this comes directly from our HSA, which I fund to the max each year. Note that this does not include dental or vision. We have separate dental and vision coverage, which is ok but not great.
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As self-employed attorneys, my wife and I are able to obtain coverage through the state bar association. Our family coverage runs us about $630/ month. It’s a high-deductible plan, $10,000 deductible, which pays everything over that. Had some issues with them paying certain expenses related to her pregnancy, but worked that out, b/c well, we are attorneys. Mainly were internal errors, not policy decisions.
Of course as soon as we started our HSA last year the interest rate on the account was slashed precipitously (3% to .5%, now .3%). We have some yearly expenses related to the baby and my wife, but those don’t come too much that it made sense to raise the deductible all the way to $10,000 and take advantage of the HSA instead of staying at $2,800, where they wanted over $900 + a month.
$630 a month plus potentially $10,000 in expenses does seem high to me, but then again it is a deductible expense. As long as we spend only say $1000 in yearly expenses, the total then of $8500 a year isn’t awful, about 8% of our combined income. If we have to spend all $10,000, it would come to about 15%, too much IMO.
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DH and I have coverage through my employer. It is a PPO plan meaning we pay a copay for almost all services. There are medium-low deductibles; above that some services are 100% covered and others are 80/20.
We pay roughly $600/mo for this coverage. I do not know how much my employer contributes but my belief is that their contribution is less than $200/mo. The firm coverage is good for general medical, vision, and dental.
We want to change to an self-coverage plan with a high deductible, which would cost us less than $350/mo, but because DH is over 50 he has to pass a physical and when we had to make the decision to join the group coverage, we didn’t have enough time to get that done.
We are both in very good health which makes mandatory coverage even more annoying than expensive … since joining the firm in April I’ll have paid $4800 over the year and neither of us has been to the doctor even once. $4800 for nothing. Nice.
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Health insurance information is one of the few glaring omissions I find on the GRS blog.
The US health insurance situation is changing fairly rapidly (at least for people who aren’t covered by an employer’s policy), and I would like some guidance.
I am a solopreneur and neither me nor my husband have health insurance. The estimate I got for high deductible coverage for the both of us is $385 per month.
I am loath to spend that much if I have no assurance that the insurance company will actually come through for us once one of us gets sick or seriously injured.
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Previously I was on an plan through my employer that covered medical, dental and vision. While I was working, it cost me about $66 per month.
I am currently unemployed and am on the COBRA plan through my employer, so I can have the exact same coverage as I did when I was employed. However, now it costs me $330 per month.
My husband is self-employed and has an individual plan through the same insurance provider as I do, found through ehealthinsurance.com. Medical-only costs about $230 per month.
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UPMC PPO, roughly $1100/month premiums, of which we contribute about $330 and my employer covers the rest. We had traditional old-school health insurance (i.e., not managed care) through my husband’s job, but we switched to mine because his was roughly $5000 a year more and cost us slightly more out of pocket besides. We have been happy with the coverage.
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Coverage for myself, significant other, and 2 children is $900 per month through my employer here in the US. $30 co-pays for basic doctor visits & routine things. We pay 80% of all other costs, up to $5,000. After $5,000, the insurance company pays everything.
$900 per month works out to be about 22% of my total yearly income I use just for health coverage. I am completely against the government having any say or control of my healthcare so I am happy to pay this. They’re building a brand new hospital in my town right now, and my Children’s Hospital is phenomenal.
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Hi, I’m a United Kingdom citizen (or Great Britain if anyone doesn’t recognise that title). We have a National Health Service. This is paid for by taxation. It is entirely free at the point of delivery for all people. This includes General Practioner services (this may be Family Doctors in other countries) to advanced hospital care. If a person requires a prescription from their doctor, it costs £7 (roughly) per item. People above 65 don’t pay for this. There is also the option to buy a prepayment certificate for either 3 months or 12 months to pay for all of prescription costs. As an example, I have asthma and eczema. I require 4 separate drugs per month. The yearly total for this would be £336, with a prepayment certificate I get it for about £150. Dental and eye care is also subsidised, apologies I don t know the details of this.
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I get my insurance through my employer- a large financial institution. I chose the mid-range PPO that was offered (No deductible and 90% coinsurance in- network, $300 deductible and 70% coinsurance out-of-network) plus premium dental coverage and basic vision. There is no co-pay for yearly physicals and women’s health exams. For this, I pay only $57 per month. Generic prescription drugs cost me $5/ month, but anything name-brand is very expensive.
My office has a doctor on staff that we can go to without making any sort of payment, so I am able to go to him for things like allergic reactions, trouble sleeping, etc. This is one of my favorite benefits and I know I’m very lucky!
I’m young (24) and generally very healthy, so this plan might seem like more than I really need but I’ll never dip below this level of coverage if I can help it. This year, my doctor sent me to the emergency room to treat dehydration. I was in bad shape, but I went to the ER mostly because the doctor said I needed an IV. I was there a total of 3 hours and I saw the doctor once, for maybe 30 seconds. I was given an IV with fluids and anti-nasea medicine and they ran a few blood tests. My total bill ended up being around $160, but without insurance, I would have paid an additional $2000 (this is what my insurance supposedly “paid”- I’m not buying it)! Imagine if I had something really wrong with me or if I needed expensive tests!
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I pay about $80 biweekly and I budgeted $800 for my FSA. I have gone over that by a little bit (it could be more, but I am getting my contacts refilled after Jan 1). I upped it to $1100 for the next year because I have to get the contacts, plus I am interested in new glasses. We are trying to get pregnant, so it should probably be more, but since we’ve been trying over a year I don’t feel so confident anymore and didn’t want to up the FSA.
Anyway, my insurance through my employer is the top of the line, a PPO/personal choice. (I’m am in the US, btw.) I can go to any doctor I want, never need a referral. Only need pre-certs for certain procedures. Specialists are a $20 copay, primary is $10. Surgery is $100. I think ER is $500 but I am fortunate to not have to know that (knock on wood). I have decent prescription coverage. I do not have vision insurance at my current job, unfortunately, but when I did I found I saved about $70, which I didn’t feel was a great savings. My dental insurance is covered by my employer.
I had cancer at the age of 23 and was extremely lucky to have similar, top-of-the-line insurance. It has been a while since my treatment, but I don’t recall paying much in the way of co-pays and I never had a hospital bill. Thank god for that. I would recommend good insurance to anyone at any age because you truly never know what might happen, even to an extremely healthy young person.
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We have health insurance through the National Guard. About $190/month for really great coverage. They only have two brackets, single or family, so when our first arrives next summer it won’t change any. Definitely some tradeoffs with serving in the military but the insurance is a big reason why I still do. My civilian employer has insurance also but it’s more expensive (to me) for less coverage.
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Oh gee, I live in Massachusetts.. I’m a part-time nursing student (which somehow translates into 50 hours/week). I work 2 days a week, making about $100 each day. I qualify for Commonwealth Care, which is Massachusett’s low income healthcare. I pay $0/month, and pay about $10 per doctor visit, $50 to the ER. My birth control is free, and I’m not on any other medicines. I am grateful to live in MA because I don’t know how I would be able to afford it otherwise. My job doesn’t offer it, even if I was full-time, and my school doesn’t either, since I’m not enrolled in enough credits. Even if I was offered it through school, the health insurance is $1,000 for the year and not offered to be broken up into monthly payments. In addition, the health insurance isn’t as good, nor does it come with free dental & vision like Commonwealth Care does.
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My husband and I have retiree insurance in the USA. Our premium just went up to slightly over $600 per month/each. The deductible is $2,500 each with an out of pocket maximum of $5,000 annually. We are looking at other options but the research looks like the older you get the more insurance companies can charge. It’s over a year out before one of us qualifies for medicare.
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How much do you spend on health insurance? $347 a month
Where do you get your health insurance coverage?
I have an individual plan for myself and my daughter. My employer only offers family coverage for $800 a month or individual. So I had to get a plan myself.
What sort of coverage do you have?
I have a $10,000 deductible, $30 copays. It’s horrible and sucking me dry!
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Spanish- 180 euros a month just for my wife, I and my son..
well worth it..
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Great conversation in the comments for this article. I encourage the group to consider all forms of cost for consumers of health care:
1. Financial cost (out of pocket expense for insurance premiums, deductibles, etc)
2. Time cost (the additional time people spend in order to save on financial cost such as waiting periods)
3. Pain/Emotional cost (the anxiety and strain one goes through when they face complexity in insurance benefits, or confusion in using the health care system.
The true costs of health care (and health insurance) in any country is the total of the 3 categories. Sometimes we ignore the hidden costs.
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J.D.
My family pays $825 per month. That’s health insurance coverage for my wife and I, and our four children. I’m 34 years old and my wife is 31. Our kids are 10, 9, 5, and almost 1. We have a $1,000 deductible with office visit and prescription copays. Except for me. Personally I have a $2,500 deductible with copay benefits.
Sincerely,
Jared Balis
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I am currently covered by COBRA … paying $862.10 per month for my wife and me. We have pre-existing conditions (my wife just had back surgery this week) so I’m not sure what we’re doing after COBRA expires “if” the Obamacare program gets shot down by the SCOTUS.
The $862.10 covers a $2000 annual deductible with maximum $6000 annual out of pocket after 20% copays.
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I live in Maine and we have no competition for individual insurance if you are buying it on your own. It’s Aetna Blue Cross/Blue Shield or nothing. I was fortunate and got in on a group program offered to individuals by the state. It was meant to address the problems individuals have getting insurance and is subsidized, for low income people, to help pay for the premiums. Unfortunately, I don’t qualify for that. I am currently paying over $700/mo for health insurance! For those who are complaining about paying $160 I have no sympathy! I have the highest deductible I can get and this is the cheapest plan available to me. This is a real issue in this state. If you aren’t employed or your employer doesn’t offer insurance (which is happening more and more), you are SOL unless you have enough $$ to buy your own. If I didn’t have expensive monthly prescriptions I would bag it and put the money in a health savings acct I made for myself.
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