I was recently hired (sort of - company acquisition) by a newer, fancier, bigger company, and for the first time in my life I actually have a choice of health insurance plans instead of being told "this is what we've got, take it or don't."
I'm looking at the options and trying to figure out what is the best, mathematically.
Annual premium cost to me will be (pretax/after tax):
Base plan: $1209/$701
Buy-up #1: $1806/$1047
Buy-up #2: $2994/$1736
HDHP: $1197/$694
Caveat: I tend to get sick a lot, I take medications for chronic conditions, and there is a fairly high chance I will be needing one or two out-patient surgeries in the next year or two. So I'm not considering either the base plan or the HDHP. Even without surgery, I'd be sprinting through the deductibles with specialist visits for the issue that may need surgery.
It seems like buy-up #1 is my best choice if I don't end up having surgery, but buy-up #2 would be significantly better if I did have surgery (because there is almost no way to run up costs with that one). I'm leaning towards #2 because I think I'm likely to max out the deductible every year on #1, which would mean at best I'd only be saving a couple hundred bucks a year while risking $2000 OOP if I end up having surgery or some other medical event.
Please tell me if I am missing something!
