What do you pay for your health insurance premium per month

[lilybluerose]

I'm just curious what you guys do. I don't want to do HSA and I'm nervous to do a bronze plan. I really don't see my Drs too often but I do have a few things that cause issues once in a while. I am So paranoid of choosing a lower plan then being screwed, but maybe I should switch. Mine is currently $425/month and my children are around $225 a month each .

If I go cheaper , in order to maintain my specialists and PCP I'd have zero coverage for visits until deductible is paid and I believe that is 9k .

If I stayed healthy and all went well I wouldn't see these doctors more than once a year. But you just never know.

I'm self employed

[Michael in ABQ]

$239.69 for family coverage - Tricare Reserve Select. Heavily subsidized by the military. Typical out of pocket costs over a year are maybe another $500-1,000. Individual deductible is $300.

[Villanelle]

Are you only asking about ACA, or in general?

Right now, nothing.  I have insurance through DH's military coverage.  When I previously had coverage through my employer, that also had no monthly premium. (I believe there was a modest amount for family members, but since I was only covering myself, I don't know how  much that was.) My OOP max for the year is $1000, I think, as long as I stay in-network.  Small deductible and co-insurance payment for some treatments. 

[seattlecyclone]

How much others are paying is not really what you need to consider. You need to consider what your options are. How much would you save on premiums by increasing your deductible? How likely is it that doctor visits would cause your out-of-pocket costs to exceed the amount you saved on premiums? If you did need to pay your full deductible due to a hospital stay or something, would you be able to afford that?

It's a numbers game. Going with the higher-deductible plan you should expect there will be some years where you end up spending more than if you had picked a lower-deductible/higher-premium plan. As long as these years are relatively few and far between you'll probably be better off in the long run with the high-deductible plan. You're the one who knows your health best, and can best make a guess as to how often you'll need to seek medical care.

[moof]

I'm just curious what you guys do. I don't want to do HSA and I'm nervous to do a bronze plan. I really don't see my Drs too often but I do have a few things that cause issues once in a while. I am So paranoid of choosing a lower plan then being screwed, but maybe I should switch. Mine is currently $425/month and my children are around $225 a month each .

If I go cheaper , in order to maintain my specialists and PCP I'd have zero coverage for visits until deductible is paid and I believe that is 9k .

If I stayed healthy and all went well I wouldn't see these doctors more than once a year. But you just never know.

I'm self employed

Still working, so not relevant.
But...  When I have dug into ACA premiums and gamed things out for my own family's purposes,and usually Bronze wins.  Not only are silver/gold plans more expensive up front, often paying $3-5k more a year in premiums up front, but when I have tried to find scenarios where there is a clear savings I can't find it.  In the case of catastrophe a Gold plan costs $16k, Silver plan costs $14k, and Bronze costs $12k.  In a good year (no medical needs) the Gold is $8k, the Silver $6k, and the Bronze costs $5k.  In a few small scenarios the fixed cost of a specialist visit being predetermined makes the Silver or Gold slightly better, but not by much, and only for a narrow combination of visits.
Keep in mind that a lot of preventative type stuff is 100% covered regardless.

[Ron Scott]

Been retired for almost 7 years. Was on Obamacare (hated it) but finally turned eligible for Medicare.

I’ve got original Medicare (no interest in Medicare Advantage), Supplemental Plan N (not enough doctor visits to warrant Plan G) with BCBS, and a Part D plan.

All in it’s about $750 a month plus Medicare deductibles plus Copays.

[Hula Hoop]

Nothing.  We live in Italy and use the public healthcare system and occasionally pay to go private if we feel like it.  I've thought about getting supplemental private health insurance but it doesn't seem to work out in the end financially as we always go public for big things like surgery (which is free in the public system).  Obviously we do pay our taxes though and this pays for universal healthcare.

You didn't specify which country you live in?  I'm assuming it's the US?  Are you looking for answers only from mustachians who also live in the US?  Obviously, this information is pretty crucial as each country has it's own health care system and balance between public and private healthcare.

[MrGreen]

This is our first year  using a Bronze plan (not HSA eligible) on the ACA with a higher income. For a family of 3 our income will be $78,000 for the year and our monthly premium is $2.68. Total healthcare expenses so far are $1700. About half of that is occupational therapy for our toddler and the last of my physical therapy from a surgery last year. Short on a big medical expense, the decision to go with a Bronze plan will have worked out well for us financially.

[wageslave23]

Group plan through employer. Overall cost is $1400 per month for family of 3. Employer pays $1000 of it. Similar ACA plans were silver and about the same cost. Not subsidy eligible.  If it was just me, I'd say f it and go either with a cheap high deductible plan or more likely go without insurance.  But my wife is a bit of a hypochondriac or at least leans towards over treatment.  And my daughter we are both obviously cautious with.

[iluvzbeach]

Two of us on an ACA plan - $58/month total. Deductible- $750 each. MOOP - $2100 each.

We’ve been very happy thus far. See the same doctors we did pre-FIRE and have not had any issues with getting ACA plan to approve or pay for services.

[roomtempmayo]

How much others are paying is not really what you need to consider. You need to consider what your options are. How much would you save on premiums by increasing your deductible? How likely is it that doctor visits would cause your out-of-pocket costs to exceed the amount you saved on premiums? If you did need to pay your full deductible due to a hospital stay or something, would you be able to afford that?

It's a numbers game. Going with the higher-deductible plan you should expect there will be some years where you end up spending more than if you had picked a lower-deductible/higher-premium plan. As long as these years are relatively few and far between you'll probably be better off in the long run with the high-deductible plan. You're the one who knows your health best, and can best make a guess as to how often you'll need to seek medical care.

All of this ^.

The other thing to keep in mind is that going to a HDHP makes you eligible for an HSA, which as significant tax benefits if you're in a higher tax bracket.

OP, since you're self employed, our employer-sponsored numbers won't mean anything.  What we do is keep my wife and daughter on my wife's cadillac plan from her employer since they both go to the doctor, and I stay on an HDHP plan from my employer with an HSA.  Even my single HSA is saving us over $1000 in income taxes, not to mention the lower premiums, so paying a bit more in nickel and dime out of pockets isn't a big deal.

[sonofsven]

I pay $49/mo for an HSA bronze plan through the ACA with a $6900 deductible/max out of pocket. I went with this particular plan because it's in network at my local hospital. Being in a rural location, I have fewer choices.

Since I've been self employed my whole career I'm used to buying my own insurance. It's definitely improved from the pre ACA days.

You can look at your previous years spending and get a pretty good average on your spend and that can tell you if you'd have been better off with a bronze or gold plan, but that's only looking backwards.
I've been better off with a bronze plan, but I've had low healthcare costs (until this year).

The problem using this to plan for the future is you obviously don't know when a major mishap could happen, and it's also really hard to know what it will cost because they make it almost impossible to know.

I like the HSA plan because it's like a catastrophic plan (and a great tax break, and you can invest it in the market). Once you have enough in your HSA to cover the deductible then insurance is going to cover you.

In reality, you need to be able to cover multiple years of deductibles, since it resets every Jan 1 (don't get sick or in an accident in the fall!)

[rantk81]

Watch out, some "high deductible" plans have deductibles so high that they are too high to allow you to be eligible to contribute to an HSA.  Sounds insane, but that's part of the ACA Law!

[seattlecyclone]

Watch out, some "high deductible" plans have deductibles so high that they are too high to allow you to be eligible to contribute to an HSA.  Sounds insane, but that's part of the ACA Law!

HSAs/HDHPs predate the ACA. There's both a lower limit to the deductible for these plans, and an upper limit to the out-of-pocket maximum. The law set the minimum individual deductible to $1,000 in 2003 dollars, and the maximum out-of-pocket costs to $5,000. These amounts are indexed to general inflation. Even so, these days a $1,600 (inflation-adjusted) deductible hardly seems like a "high deductible" anymore with how much the cost of medical care has gone up. Similarly, while $5,000 in 2003 might have seemed like a high enough out-of-pocket maximum that Congress might reasonably have said "a plan that covers less than this barely counts as health insurance at all so we aren't giving HSA tax benefits to it," these days a $8,050 inflation-adjusted individual out-of-pocket maximum isn't that unheard of anymore.

[rantk81]

Watch out, some "high deductible" plans have deductibles so high that they are too high to allow you to be eligible to contribute to an HSA.  Sounds insane, but that's part of the ACA Law!

HSAs/HDHPs predate the ACA. There's both a lower limit to the deductible for these plans, and an upper limit to the out-of-pocket maximum. The law set the minimum individual deductible to $1,000 in 2003 dollars, and the maximum out-of-pocket costs to $5,000. These amounts are indexed to general inflation. Even so, these days a $1,600 (inflation-adjusted) deductible hardly seems like a "high deductible" anymore with how much the cost of medical care has gone up. Similarly, while $5,000 in 2003 might have seemed like a high enough out-of-pocket maximum that Congress might reasonably have said "a plan that covers less than this barely counts as health insurance at all so we aren't giving HSA tax benefits to it," these days a $8,050 inflation-adjusted individual out-of-pocket maximum isn't that unheard of anymore.

Ahh thanks for clarifying/correcting me.  But yeah, it's crazy that you can have a plan that has "too high of an out of pocket max" such that it is ineligible for HSA contributions, yet is still ACA compliant!

Looking over most of the (full price, un-subsizied plans with no cost sharing) plans on healthcare.gov for my area, it seems like the "maximum-allowed" out-of-pocket-maximums for families (of $18,200) are pretty much standard on all of them. -- which makes them ineligible for HSAs (since it's over $15,000 for 2023)

Crazy that congress didn't align these numbers...

[jnw]

Been retired for almost 7 years. Was on Obamacare (hated it) but finally turned eligible for Medicare.

I’ve got original Medicare (no interest in Medicare Advantage), Supplemental Plan N (not enough doctor visits to warrant Plan G) with BCBS, and a Part D plan.

All in it’s about $750 a month plus Medicare deductibles plus Copays.

What is supplemental plan N and BCBS?  I pay $164.90 per month for Original Medicare Parts A+B and $19.70 for Prescription insurance (Plan D).  So I pay like $185 per month.  Just wondering why you pay $565 more than I do.  I see the doctor often and have been in the ER a few times in teh past few years including an overnight hospital stay and everything has been very affordable for me.

My deductible is like $200 or so per year.  The hospital stay deductible is like $1500 or so.   My copay is about $25 per office visit  whether to PCP or specialist.  Tests are really cheap at under $50.  Procedures are usually like $200 or so -- e.g. gastro endoscopy for GERD.

[Louise]

This is our first year  using a Bronze plan (not HSA eligible) on the ACA with a higher income. For a family of 3 our income will be $78,000 for the year and our monthly premium is $2.68. Total healthcare expenses so far are $1700. About half of that is occupational therapy for our toddler and the last of my physical therapy from a surgery last year. Short on a big medical expense, the decision to go with a Bronze plan will have worked out well for us financially.

That's inexpensive. When I run our state's estimate, we get a premium of about 400/mo for a silver plan for the same income. I wonder how much less a bronze plan would be for us? The estimator tool only uses silver plans.

[lutorm]

Since moving to Sweden a few months ago, zero. :D

Probably doesn't help you much, though.

[Sanitary Stache]

I am on an employer sponsored plan. My premium is $490 a month for me and my spouse. My employer covers 80% of the deductible premiumCopay’s are $ 20-25 per visit and most other things are covered. At least I have never had to pay anything.

The kids are on the local CHIP insurance for $10/year.

Edited to correct my employer doesn’t pay any deductible.

[jim555]

Nothing.

[PlanetDee]

I work for state government- premium for spouse and I will be about $300 per month. Definitely will be saving money by switching him to my plan vs his employer.

[Chris Pascale]

$520 a year for the whole family.

Wife is retired military.

[Reynold]

About $2200/month for the two of us, retired last March and paying COBRA (keeping the previous company plan) because the ACA options in our state are pretty bad.  None of them has anything but emergency care out of state, for example. 

The ACA plans we looked at for reasonable coverage we expect to run close to $2000/month.  We knew this would be our biggest single expense in retirement until Medicare kicks in in a few years, so we planned for it, it added about 40% to what we felt we needed to retire. 

[Dicey]

Ugh. Until DH qualifies for Medicare in 2.5 years, with the latest round of increases, we're shelling out $1k/month. As a retiree, he gets $550/ month for healthcare, but it's taxable income, so we actually see around $475-ish of that, so roughly $625 OOP?

We might get better pricing via ACA, but his employer's coverage is outstanding, but once you opt out, you can't rejoin. MPP, for sure.