Just curios, if you don't mind sharing, what does everyone pay for health care insurance? Our premiums keep going up, up and up! We have Blue Cross, its technically through the local electrical workers union where my husband used to work. Its a large group and although he is laid off, as long as we continue to pay the raising monthly premium, we can keep the coverage.
We just got a notice that out premiums will be increased to 6 a month beginning in June!!!!!
My employer pays 9.62 for me every month. I also have BCBS. You might want to talk to someone from BCBS. There may be away to adjust your deductable to lower your premium. I assume the price you quoted was for both you and your husband? Does that include any children?
The price of health care is outradgous I'll agree with that. I'm very fortunate to have health care included in my benifits package at work.
There's no way to manage this disease without it though. At times my medication alone has run over ,000 a year. Of course I only paid a fraction of this with my prescription coverage so I can't complain. I'm certainly getting my money's worth that's for sure. I feel the worst for those people that are healthy and rarely even see a doctor. I really feel like those folks should get some kind of "Healthy Bonus" at the end of every year.
when my first husband died (9 years ago), one of the death benefits I received was lifetime health insurance at the company rates. so I only pay 0/month for a family package. our copay is per visit, and we're covered mostly at 100% except for a few things where we pay 10%. can't complain. I'm keeping the coverage for life. my current husband has good benefits through his work but I don't use them. I don't want to give up what I have. That is a wonderful benifit Hula!We have Tricare Prime (retired military) and a secondary with the retired military officers association. Our medical insurance costs are minimal. Our insurances covers everything. After working in health and workers' comp ins. for years I realize how lucky we are. With Tricare Prime we're not limited to using Military doctors. It's a ppo so we have access to providers and medical facilities around the nation. My spouse spent 30 years in the military and this is one of the things that made it worth it. My expenses for the last year were ,000 for RA/PA/OA. This year will be much more with having a TKR done this coming month. Everything has been paid. We are very fortunate and we realize that each and every day.
For my family of five, (wife, three children and myself) we pay $ 660 per month through BCBS with a 0 deductable.
I have BCBS too but they only manage our health care. All the costs are paid by the University I work for. I pay .44 a month for coverage for me and my husband. Our office visit copay is . Surgery copays are . Generic prescriptions cost . The rest of the drugs cost either or , depending on whether or not they are part of our program. All labs and tests are paid at 100%.
you can change jobs. as long as you remain continully covered under a group plan the new insurance cannot impose the pre existing condition clauseI pay /month for Universal Medical Services Plan and /month for
Having our own business for 22 years, we always had to provide our own insurance. Fifteen years ago, I managed to get into a plan that was a pool of people with existing conditions who were, for the most part, uninsurable. We have paid well over 00 for my husband and myself for many years.
That group quit providing insurance Jan. 07, but because of HIPPA, we managed to get a PPO insurance at that time, at a cost of 46 per mo. for 2 people, with 00 ea. deductible, thru Blue Shield.
Fortunately, as of tomorrow, 5/1, I start getting Medicare benefits, due to Social Security Disability. I compared all the plans available thru Medicare and for my purposes, with my RXs, Health Net Seniority Plus was the best for me.
My husband will still keep the Blue Shield PPO, and his monthly premium will be 3.00.
If you retire before Social Security/Medicare age, it is extremely expensive to keep your own insurance.
We are now on a BC/BS Health Savings Plan. We switched to that, hoping to save some money, as our monthy premiums on our PPO with BC/BS had gone up to close to 00 per month. So now we pay 2.12 per month, and have to pay for the first 00 of expenses ourselves, through money we put into the health savings account. Since we struggle to pay the 2.12, we don't have anything left to put into the HSA, so we are paying for all our expenses ourselves until we reach that magic 00 mark. The goal of the HSA is to put pre-tax money into the account to cover the deductible, but since we are self-employed anyway, that doesn't even apply to us really. It's all the same money.
With all of our monthly prescriptions, and my son's Lyme Disease, husbands recent health problems, I figure we'll reach it by September. Then look out, I'll go crazy and start seeing doctors too! LOL
We pay 73 a week for health and vision. 13 a month for an HMO dental plan. 20 for office and urgent care co-pays. 50 for the ER which is waived if you are admitted. I get almost everything covered at 100% . My drug co-pays vary on what the med is. We have a tier system for meds that is at 10, 25, and 50 dollars. They move meds around so much from the tiers that it ticks me off. They just moved my Advair to tier 3 and gave me a suggestion for something that is tier 1.
My mtx is not covered but it is only 13 bucks a month and my syringes are only 25 cents a piece. My humira is 50 bucks a month. My lyrica is also 50 a month. It seems that if I do not have a generic equilvalent for the med it is 50 bucks.
I wish I didn't have those annoying drug commercials!!! I throw my socks at the tv when the enbrel or those stupid take 2 aleve and you are fine for the rest of the day commercials come on lol.
We do not pay anything but as a company benefit, my husband companyI've just got my Cobra insurance. It's a HMO BC plan. I have vision coverage too. After reading what some of you are paying, I don't feel so bad. I pay 5 a month. That's only for me. Included in that is my dental. Office co-pays are and ER is . My meds run from to for a 30 day supply.
The dental is a different company and my co-pay is different for each visit. Can run me from to 0 per visit depending on what's done.
It's hard to come up with the money to pay for this as I have so little coming in but I gave up alot in order to keep my insurance.
I have BC/BS PPO through my company and my contribution is 5/month for myself and my husband. My co-insurance is 10% of reasonable and customary (often a doctor visit), and I have no idea how they figure the meds, but most are in the -30 range, with some a little higher. All my meds are covered, including Enbrel (0 for 3 mos).
There is an out-of-pocket max on Rx of ,500 and on medical care of ,000, so I usually hit those and then they cover most everything after that. Because of the deductibles and some out-of-network costs, I end up spending about ,000 out of pocket for the year, plus my monthly contributions. And that doesn't include my supplements (SAM-e and Glucosamine Chondroitin are expensive!).
Thank you everyone for sharing. I have been checking most of the morning. Basically, it comes down to this, if I were to ditch the blue cross policy we have now, I could go on an individual blue cross plan, Will is a vet so he can go to the va hospital. However, the catch is the drug coverage. The maximum any individual policy in Michigan will pay is a total of ,500 a YEAR from drugs. Mine are more than that a MONTH!!!!micheleb the HIPPA act says if you change ins companies (no gaps in coverage) the new company has to pay for your treatment for pre-existing conditions. They can no longer make you wait 1 year. US federal law.
It ain't great but at least it is something.
Marian, REALLY??? Hmm, that would be very helpful, I wonder why the guy at blue cross didn't mention that when I brought it up? Probably because they don't want to us to switch, I would imagine! I heard there is a site on line called ehealthinsurancemi.com or something that is supposed to list all the companies available. I will check it out in a few minutes. But Marian, that is provided they are not self insured companies. SeveralMichele, If you do a web search for "HIPAA health insurance", you can find a site that will explain all about this federal law. I looked at the AARP site that came up, but there were many others.
Good luck
We pay nothing as we have national health service but my husband does get national insurance deducted from his wages( this covers medical, unemployment, pension etc). About £50.00 a week. This may sound good but in a lot of places Rhuemy visits are once a year and other hospital appointments are at least a three month wait. Our G.P visits are normally within 24 hours.We pay for our dental treatment though. [QUOTE=pin cushion]We pay for our dental treatment though.[/QUOTE]Michele, lorster is correct. The HIPAA laws do not apply to individual policies. You would have to undergo the underwriting process if you applied for an individual policy. Depending on your individual states laws, they may not even offer you a policy, or if they do, it will be "rated", limiting coverage and/or having extraordinarily high premiums.
Group coverage is a different story. That is always the best alternative. I apologize, but I forget your particular circumstances - can your husband carry the insurance through his employer? I know you said he is covered under the VA, but if he has coverage available at his job it may be your best bet financially. Don't discontinue what you have until you have something equal or better, because once you are without coverage it will be very hard to replace it, especially if you are unemployed.
We have dentists yes.No seriously we all see our dentist every six months..If I remember correctly, my case was tried under the ARISSA laws so you may