How many of those currently employed have a choice between PPO and HSA?

[Stellar]

Hello all,

I am curious, of those working full time, if any of your employers offer both options?  What did you choose?  Why? 

My company has a few health options.  For both my spouse and I, the PPO is a 1500 deductible per person for $300/mo.  All your standard stuff applies here.  The HSA is $2000 deductible per person also at $300/mo but the company also funds it by $2000 a year.  All preventative stuff is covered 100% including prescriptions.  The PPO plan has your usual co-pays for medicine.  I have asthma, so I've been to the doctor twice this year.  One of them was yesterday (pneumonia) which prompted my post - the visit would of been $68 versus $25 but the company does fund the HSA with $2000.  My husband has only goes for his yearly physical.  He was born with bad kidneys but there isn't much that can be done about that, they just get tested every so often.

So far all his kidney stuff is OK, I know at some point the doctor mentioned a biopsy but that can be as far off as 2-3 years.  He is 38 and I am 39.  He has high cholesterol and that is whether or not he eats well and exercises.  I have some chick thing called PCOS but I take my metformin and jog plus stay away from junk food plus bread for the most part, so I feel well most of the time and my blood sugar is in check. 

What would you all go with?  We can also contribute to the HSA, which is nice.  Eventually, that is his copay for a kidney biopsy or whatever else pops up.

Thanks!
St-

[BooksAreNerdy]

We could chose between a PPO and a CHO (hdhp with HSA). We are a fairly healthy family of 4. So far this year we are like $500 towards our $3500 deductible on the CHO plan. We get $1k towards the hsa from the employer. So, that plus our low usage makes it make sense to have the lower monthly premiums.

We max out the HSA in hopes of being able to use it in the future, post retirement 

[Pigeon]

I am very fortunate in that I have a choice of an excellent HMO or a number of PPOs at a reasonable-ish cost.  I'm a cancer survivor and I saw what my treatment (chemo, rads, lumpectomy, prophylactic hormone treatment for years).  I get followed up by a number of different specialists on a routine basis. 

While I know high deductible, bare-bones plans are popular here, I would never go without good coverage if I had that option and could afford it.  It is a personal high priority and I'm more than willing to put of FIRE a bit to have it.  In your case, I'd go for the PPO, but that's me.

[seattlecyclone]

Sounds like the premiums are the same with both plans, so we can ignore those when comparing. With the HSA plan, your company funds it by $2,000 every year, so your costs in the best case will be -$2,000 for the HSA and $0 for the PPO. The HSA plan is a clear winner here. What about the worst case? What are the out-of-pocket maximums for the two plans? Is the HSA plan's maximum more than $2,000 higher than the PPO's maximum? If so, the PPO wins if something really bad happens to you. How much is this difference in the worst case, and how likely do you think you are to rack up enough expenses that the PPO will win?

[PathtoFIRE]

To answer the OP's question, my company used to have a two-tiered PPO plans and one HDHP (with no company HSA). Then we went to 1 PPO plan and the same HDHP last year, and for next year, we no longer have any PPO-style choice, instead we have the true HDHP (again with no company HSA, would have to fund completely myself) and what I consider an HDHP-lite with an HRA, which has slightly higher premiums, slightly lower deductibles and OOP maxes (I call it lite because it's not technically an HDHP plan and therefore doesn't qualify for an HSA, but it's still structured almost exactly the same as the actual HDHP plan). I have wanted to switch to an HDHP for the past year, but DW preferred the PPO plan, so while I am disappointed that I'm left with no real "choice", being forced onto to HDHP-lite plan may work in my benefit, as it will give DW a year to see what it's like, and then maybe she will let me take the plunge into the true HDHP plan.

DW is a federal employee, unfortunately the formulas for their healthcare dramatically reduce the employer covered portion, and since she works part time, instead of the employee paying 25% of costs, she would have to pay about 63% of costs (I guess the VA looks at it like if a full time employee gets 75% of medical insurance covered, then a half-time employee should get only half of that 75%), which makes that plan, at least for family coverage, prohibitively expensive.

[sirdoug007]

My employer just established a high deductible health plan for 2015 along with HSAs.  They call it a "Consumer Driven Health Plan" (CDHP).

For an individual the CDHP is about $600 cheaper in annual premiums and they throw about $1100 in the HSA for you. 

The interesting thing is that due to the out of pocket maximums not being much different from the PPO to the CDHP ($2000 vs. $3000), you actually end up cheaper annually with EITHER very low expenses or very high expenses.  I definitely didn't think the CDHP would be cheaper for high costs but it is. 

I'll be doing the high deductible plan for the first time and stuffing my HSA (aka "The Ultimate Retirement account"  http://www.madfientist.com/ultimate-retirement-account/).  Hopefully the investing fees won't be too high but I LOVE the triple tax free-ness of the HSA (no income, ss, or medicare taxes ever!).

[Allen]

We have a PPO and HSA option.  We chose HSA.  Company puts in only $600.

I crunched the numbers and for our two plans, unless we knew going in of chronic expensive health conditions, the savings of $200/mo in premiums made it worth risking.  If something REALLY bad (i.e. expensive) happened, we still have a max out of pocket of like $5500 instead of $2500.  Now that I've maxed the HSA for a year, I could cover my max out of pocket with the HSA if I had to, so I just enrolled for the HSA again this year.  It saved me money this year AND I have an account invested and growing with cash I can use for healthcare.

[Stellar]

Thank you for the replies.  The max out of pocket is $5000 on HSA and $6000 on the PPO.  The larger difference is for diagnostic issues.  I had super crazy health issues for years but I've been fine since my hysterectomy 3 years ago.  The issues were due to endometriosis.  The deductible is $1500 on PPO and $2000 on HSA which was the first thing that struck me as interesting and this is why I decided to compare.

The receptionist said that even with an HSA, the stuff they bill for has to be capped.  For instance, with Cigna and an HSA, a doctor's visit is no more than $68... if it was Aetna the maximum I'd pay is $76.  I am not sure if this applies to diagnostic tests. 

[happyfeet]

Yes.  We can chose both.  Company offers $900 credit and cost is $1000 less for HSA high ded plan compared to PPO.  The max out of pocket ded is $2000 more a year.  We are 55 years old but opting for HSA with max contribution.  Fingers crossed we continue to remain healthy.