When I was a full time employee my company accidentally emailed my division a spreadsheet of our annual expenses/intake, and I was SHOCKED to see how much we each cost the company in health insurance costs. It was over $1000/month and I paid an additional $150 per month to have my son on my insurance. When I went back to being an independent contractor I joined the Obamacare ranks to the tune of $550 per month for a very similar gold level plan, again covering son and I.
Does anyone know why this is?? I would think that by insuring a boat load of people instead of just two, businesses would be able to negotiate discounts? And shouldn't there be incentives for companies to provide health insurance? (Maybe they are and it just wasn't being calculated into the gross expenses on the sheet I saw.)
You're paying more because a typical health insurance policy consists of:
1. Prepayment for preventive services - nobody thinks that "free" annual checkup is actually free, right?
2. A welfare-like redistribution system which has gotten bigger due to the requirement to cover pre-existing conditions. Someone who didn't have insurance, was diagnosed with a chronic condition with expensive treatments now can get insurance and share that cost with you! Employer provided health insurance has dealt with this for a long time - only recently has the private insurance market had to price this in, and it is expensive. There's also the number of people factor - a family pays the same (at least at a lot of employers - not sure on the new individual plans) regardless of if there are 2 people or 20 people covered in the family. There is also a bit of transfer of cost from young to old and men to women (in general - obviously individual cases can vary widely here) with the new set up - a bit of cost leveling that could be argued to make things more "fair".
3. Adminstrative costs / profit for the insurance company. Hard to say for sure how this component would change in another system, but it would certainly be different in a single payer or an every-person-for-himself, pay the doctor in cash scenario.
4. Actual insurance - protecting yourself from some catastrophic health situation cropping up. Individuals can plan and budget for a lot of preventive care, even minor emergencies. It is probably best to transfer the risk of something really bad happening for most people though.
This is an over-simplification of the situation, but "health insurance" in the US has long been much more than providing actual insurance. Items 1-3 are the bulk of the cost of your typical insurance policy. Up until fairly recently you could buy an individual plan that was closer to just providing for your insurable need, and they were much cheaper - high deductible health plans were much less expensive a few years ago.
Doesn't mean the new system is better or worse, or even if overall costs are higher or lower, but health insurance premiums are higher for a lot of people - of course the government subsidizes a lot of people here to make up for that aspect. The subsidies can make the new premiums really cheap for early retirees who are smart about managing income. Harder to control your income while working, because in the big picture while accumulating, it is usually best to just make as much money as you can.
[Edit - realized I didn't address the question asked]
So employer provided health insurance is very expensive - and has been for a long time - largely because of item 2 above - sharing costs. Young, single, healthy workers pay much more than he/she should because they are sharing costs with large families, and older, sicker workers. The company also has to account for bringing someone new in who greatly increases the healthcare costs for the company. So a big company probably actually has negotiated the best deal they can, to provide the level of coverage they feel necessary to their employees, but because they generally will charge each employee the same, regardless of the actual benefit provided.
I suspect your premium is lower on the private market than through the employer (assuming no subsidy here) because on the private market, they can price-discriminate to an extent based on certain factors like age, and possibly even number of people covered. The new law reduces these factors somewhat, but I don't think it has fully eliminated them. So the individual plan you have can factor in you and your son's age, and the fact that there's only 2 of you, into the price to an extent. Another issue may be that at least some current "Obamacare" policies are priced incorrectly - these are pretty new, so insurers are still figuring out what the premiums should be to appropriately cover the costs.