Decline job offer because of health insurance premiums?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, I could use some insight.

My husband started a job search and just received an offer on Friday. We're not sure if the health insurance should be a deal breaker. I want to support him and be enthusiastic, but I'm a little nervous. Essentially, his taking the job will require us to stay on my health insurance for as long as he's there. I'll explain a bit more.

He's employed and generally content with his current work, though the new job would be an exciting step up. The sticking point is that we are trying to conceive our first child (have been trying a while and actually doing an IUI this month), and coverage for us and a child with this new job would be $1,300/month. That sum would make things tight for our budget, even with the salary increase. He is talking with some other companies, but they're not at the "offer" stage yet and he should respond to the existing offer this week. He has specialized skills that make him marketable, and will likely get other offers, but he does particularly like this company that made the offer. They're a small-ish company, while most others he's talking with are larger (and thus might offer plans with lower premiums).

As for me, I also work full time and we are on my health insurance, which is good coverage. Mine is around $300/month for us two, and would be around $400 with children, which we can afford. I feel that if my husband takes this new job (and for however long he stays there - likely several years), I'll stay responsible for our health coverage. I like my job, but we had discussed my hopefully having some flexibility once we're parents, whether it's working part time for a while, or a less demanding full time job (mine is intense).

My husband is very easy-going and has no issue declining the offer due to the insurance situation. But I don't know if I'm overthinking this and should tell him to just go for it. I don't want to be a drag but I was really hoping his new job would have coverage that we could reasonably use, if we needed it.


Have you been in a situation like this? What do you think we should do? Thanks for your thoughts.

[Anonymous]

If it's a great job let him take it and stay on your insurance. If you are lucky to have a baby and want to consider a different job then cross the insurance bridge. You are likely a year or two from having to worry about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it's a great job let him take it and stay on your insurance. If you are lucky to have a baby and want to consider a different job then cross the insurance bridge. You are likely a year or two from having to worry about it.

+1

It's shitty that it's 2018 and insurance is tied to JOBS.

[Anonymous]

What if just he switched to the new insurance and you stayed on yours? Some employers subsidize heavily for employees but have very expensive “family” coverage.

[Anonymous]

Where are the other companies based? I was in MD with MD insurance and my DHs job was in VA with MA insurance. We went through IVF and paid almost nothing because MA and MD are fertility rights states which means insurance covered it. If any of the jobs are based in one of the 13 fertility rights states, hold out for one of those and don't pay for your IUIs!!

[Anonymous]

I would probably try to negotiate a higher salary to make up for the increased cost of insurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it's a great job let him take it and stay on your insurance. If you are lucky to have a baby and want to consider a different job then cross the insurance bridge. You are likely a year or two from having to worry about it.

OP here. Yes, this is an option that he and I discussed. He typically stays at jobs for a while, so his initial reaction was that if he'd need to switch jobs in 1-2 years due to insurance, he'd prefer to just find a better long-term job now. But that's assuming we'll have a baby in a certain timeframe, which is of course not a given. Thanks for the reply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it's a great job let him take it and stay on your insurance. If you are lucky to have a baby and want to consider a different job then cross the insurance bridge. You are likely a year or two from having to worry about it.

+1

It's shitty that it's 2018 and insurance is tied to JOBS.

OP here. YES. It makes me so mad that we have to think about it like this. And so many people have it far tougher than us.

[Anonymous]

I would see if they can increase the salary by 1300 a month to make up for the bad health care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are the other companies based? I was in MD with MD insurance and my DHs job was in VA with MA insurance. We went through IVF and paid almost nothing because MA and MD are fertility rights states which means insurance covered it. If any of the jobs are based in one of the 13 fertility rights states, hold out for one of those and don't pay for your IUIs!!

OP here, our IUIs are covered under my health insurance. IVF unfortunately is not and we don't have state-mandated coverage for it. Really good thought, though.
When he got the offer and the health insurance details, we did check to see if it might randomly cover IVF (which would sweeten the deal very much) but no luck. We're saving aggressively so we can pay for IVF if we reach that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would see if they can increase the salary by 1300 a month to make up for the bad health care.

OP here. Would you actually discuss the cost of the insurance in negotiation? I think he'd be open to that, but it might come across odd since he'd be talking about coverage for hypothetical future children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would probably try to negotiate a higher salary to make up for the increased cost of insurance.

OP again, thanks. Another PP suggested this too...have you tried this before? I've only negotiated based on my experience/market rate/etc so it didn't occur to me to suggest it to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would probably try to negotiate a higher salary to make up for the increased cost of insurance.

OP again, thanks. Another PP suggested this too...have you tried this before? I've only negotiated based on my experience/market rate/etc so it didn't occur to me to suggest it to him.

I would just be honest. “This is a great offer, but the price of family insurance is incredibly high—much higher than what we have right now—and paying that much makes the offer much less attractive.” Then I would make a counteroffer. The worst they will say is that they can’t do it, and then you have a decision to make based on the current offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would see if they can increase the salary by 1300 a month to make up for the bad health care.

OP here. Would you actually discuss the cost of the insurance in negotiation? I think he'd be open to that, but it might come across odd since he'd be talking about coverage for hypothetical future children.

I used to work for a smaller company. One guy negotiated an extra grand per month because of health insurance. We had less than 5 employees and everyone was responsible for their own insurance. Most were on spouses or parents plan. I think $300 max reimbursement was offered and this guy’s family plan would have been 1500.

Pretty sure his premiums went up and he was out of luck.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t have him negotiate the salary based on the potential for needing family insurance down the road, that would definitely be odd. It he can try to negotiate the salary to an extra $10,000 per year if that’s reasonable. Then you can stay on your insurance until it’s time to move it over to his.