Author Topic: Health Plan for my specific situation  (Read 2025 times)

Icecreamarsenal

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 600
  • Location: New Jersey
  • Burnt
Health Plan for my specific situation
« on: October 25, 2016, 08:39:58 AM »
Hey all, got a reminder from the Mad Fientist that benefits selection is coming shortly.
Currently, I have a wife and child, who are not extreme utilizers of health benefits, but I do have a baby on the way, expecting 2/17.
I have a high deductible HSA, and have been dutifully socking away and investing the tax-free cash.
I may leave my current job this coming year to take a year off, so I would expect COBRA to cover my family and myself for 18 months following quitting or termination.
COBRA, I believe, is 20% MORE than the cost associated with the employer-provided health insurance.
Knock on wood, I hope my second child is low utilization.  My first spent a couple of nights in the NICU immediately postpartum and chewed through a lot of (read: all) of the deductible on the HSA.
So the choice runs the gamut: do I go low deductible, high fixed cost PPO, or all the way to high deductible HSA, in the context of new kid on the way and quitting/termination on the horizon, with reliance on COBRA?
Thanks.

geekette

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2550
Re: Health Plan for my specific situation
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2016, 08:52:59 AM »
COBRA is no more than 102% of the cost to your employers for your insurance.  Of course, they may currently cover a LOT of that cost.  Your paystub should have info on how much they are paying for your insurance, or you can ask HR what your costs would be.

Which plan is pretty much a guess.  You know you'll have expenses, but no way of telling if they'll be high or low.  If you go with the high deductible and your child ends up in the NICU, can your stash handle it?  If that would be trouble, then go with the higher initial cost, but lower risk insurance.

Icecreamarsenal

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 600
  • Location: New Jersey
  • Burnt
Re: Health Plan for my specific situation
« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2016, 10:07:01 AM »
COBRA is no more than 102% of the cost to your employers for your insurance.  Of course, they may currently cover a LOT of that cost.  Your paystub should have info on how much they are paying for your insurance, or you can ask HR what your costs would be.

Which plan is pretty much a guess.  You know you'll have expenses, but no way of telling if they'll be high or low.  If you go with the high deductible and your child ends up in the NICU, can your stash handle it?  If that would be trouble, then go with the higher initial cost, but lower risk insurance.

Thanks.  Yes my stash can handle it, but isn't the highest I can pay out of pocket for an HSA 12k/family?  If that's the case, then my stash can handle it.  So are you saying continue to go with the high-deductible HSA?

geekette

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2550
Re: Health Plan for my specific situation
« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2016, 11:32:06 AM »
The max on ACA plans is $13,100, per google, but I don't know what your plan would be.