Like every year between early November and mid December I'm on the prowl for health insurance. Quick facts: self-employed, pre-tax income of around $120,000, and no health issues whatsoever. Married filing jointly, no kids this year but our first daughter is due in Januar. Our 2017 joint tax rate after all deductions, contributions, etc. was around 22%.
My 2018 plan is $283/month with a $4,500 deductible and a $7,900 out-of-pocket maximum that is going to increase to $312 for 2019. Unlike last year, however, there are some HSA-eligible plans available to me as well, and I'm a bit torn.
Option 1) Keep my current insurance plan for $312 a month
Option 2) Change to a slightly cheaper $303 plan with a $7,900 deductible
Option 3) Change to an HSA-eligible insurance plan for $334 with a $5,500 deductible and a $6,650 out-of-pocket maximum
A fourth option might be to add myself to my wife's health insurance. She's covered through work, however so far it would have been much more expensive than getting coverage through the marketplace. She pays $85/month for herself, adding me as her spouse would have cost an extra $415/month. They did also have an HSA-eligible plan that was less interesting last year but might be given the impending birth of our dauther might become interesting for all three of us. Since her firm is notoriously unreliable when it comes to health insurance information I don't expect to learn any details for 2019 before... well, January 2019. That's what happened in 2017, that's what happened in 2018, and I fully expect this to happen for 2019 again. Thus, let's ignore Option 4) for now until I get the final numbers in.
As far as I can tell my maximum contribution to the HSA would be $3,500 for 2019. Given last year's tax rate I would save around $800 in taxes but spend an extra $300 on insurance premiums. Sounds like a no-brainer to me, so what am I missing?