Exploding health care premium

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are retired and pay about $5350/mo for the 4. Up from $4900 last year but down from a few years ago when it was $5500. PPO and it sucks

Wow. What percentage of your income is it as a retiree?

Now I understand why people are saying $1 million retirement is nothing.

The problem is we normalize what should be a human right as a benefit reserved for those who have "made" it.

They are very wealthy if they have minor kids and retired.

Yes, we are very wealthy. It’s still a lot of money but we can afford it.

How do people will less than a million in retirement live? Wow

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our premium at work is going up by whopping 40%. So we will now pay $980 compared to $700 last year. Of course the salary stays the same.

Anyone in a similar situation?

Yep. 100%. Copays are way up, as are prescription costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the GLP haters. I was at a public event tonight and saw two morbidly obese people. Like sooooooo seriously obese they are one step away from being gilbert grape's mom stuck at home. One had a cane. Then below that some super obese people. Of course all these people should get GLPs. I think it would be miraculous.

Just like there are people that don't want the whole world to be fed because it's not profitable (thus we have hunger even though we can feed everyone on earth) there are people who don't want to help the sick and obese because it's not profitable. It's disgusting.

GLP users are not the reasons costs are skyrocketing. People need to calm down with this BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone has to pay for the millions of elderly, demented people to be hospitalized repeatedly to cure them from pneumonia and other illnesses despite the patients having no quality of life. Someone has to pay for the 31% of the nation on government subsidized healthcare (Medicaid, Tricare, Medicare, VA care).

You don't get to dictate quality of life for someone else. Let me guess, you're pro life? The elderly are still entitled to life if they want it. (That said, if they do not, I fully support physician-assisted suicide).

And as for subsidized HC, Dems have wanted this for >10 years but R's whine about "socialism". This could all be solved with universal HC. That doesn't mean that will be perfect either but it would handle the cost issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We left the PPO a few years ago for Kaiser HMO. It's cheaper and no worse quality, if anything, I'm impressed by the efficiency.

We also have a high deductible plan and a HSA that we max out. We cash flow our health expenses as we will never hit the deductible, although if something does happen we can easily pay the deductible, which with Kaiser, isn't that high, about 4k per family member. This allows us to treat our HSA as a secret investment account and it's done very well. When we retire it will be worth quite a bit and we don't have to use it for health expenses. It becomes basically another Roth.

Just learn to be smart with your healthcare planning. Use it as a tool to work for you.

The HSA isn't a "secret" investment account. It is set up to be used this way so that you pay for most of your expenses out of pocket instead of tapping into insurance.

Because of the deductible we are still paying out of pocket for our care. The HSA allows us to park a lot more tax deferred income into a growth account. I posted earlier and made a mistake, the deductible is 1600, the MOOP is 4k per family member. Or something like that. We can easily afford both the deductible and MOOP if it happens, making the HSA a great tax deferred investment tool on top of our 401ks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well someone has to pay for everyone who got glp1s off label.

lololol! whose insurance pays for glp1s who don’t have diabetes? I pay OOP with BCBS.

[Anonymous]

Anyone have their United Healthcare premiums going to double?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well someone has to pay for everyone who got glp1s off label.

Yup. Some people have genuine health issues that they are not responsible for. But a 5'6 woman with no diabetes weighting 145 lbs jumping on glp1 is ridiculous and we are all paying for it because she wants to be skinny. She should pay for it out of her own damn pocket.

Um, she is paying from her damn pocket. Insurance does not approve use for regular weight people, and it's hard to get it even if you do need it. Such a weird thing to criticize. You are mostly mad at obese people and diabetic people but it's not PC so you displace the blame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This discussion is why I want the right to die. I'd rather skip all the healthcare and just die when I want, rather than be forced to stay alive when I don't want to.

+1. My mom has diabetes and has to take insulin everyday. If I had diabetes, I'd rather not take insulin everyday, but I also don't want to be blind but still alive because my other functions are taking longer to die off than my eyes. I would just rather end it.

Diabetes is treatable and not comparable to other illnesses but people die every day from it due to lack of access to insulin and supplies. Its not a joke.

It’s not a joke, and it illustrates the point. The people who want to die even if the illness is treatable should be allowed to die.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are retired and pay about $5350/mo for the 4. Up from $4900 last year but down from a few years ago when it was $5500. PPO and it sucks

Wow. What percentage of your income is it as a retiree?

Now I understand why people are saying $1 million retirement is nothing.

The problem is we normalize what should be a human right as a benefit reserved for those who have "made" it.

They are very wealthy if they have minor kids and retired.

Yes, we are very wealthy. It’s still a lot of money but we can afford it.

How do people will less than a million in retirement live? Wow

They do not retire

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We left the PPO a few years ago for Kaiser HMO. It's cheaper and no worse quality, if anything, I'm impressed by the efficiency.

We also have a high deductible plan and a HSA that we max out. We cash flow our health expenses as we will never hit the deductible, although if something does happen we can easily pay the deductible, which with Kaiser, isn't that high, about 4k per family member. This allows us to treat our HSA as a secret investment account and it's done very well. When we retire it will be worth quite a bit and we don't have to use it for health expenses. It becomes basically another Roth.

Just learn to be smart with your healthcare planning. Use it as a tool to work for you.

The HSA isn't a "secret" investment account. It is set up to be used this way so that you pay for most of your expenses out of pocket instead of tapping into insurance.

I thought you couldn't have a HDHP/HSA if you had a "regular" insurance plan. Am I wrong?
For example, I couldn't have insurance through my work and also be on my husband's HDHP plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our premium at work is going up by whopping 40%. So we will now pay $980 compared to $700 last year. Of course the salary stays the same.

Anyone in a similar situation?

Hardly call $280 bucks pre tax a big deal. A good family plan cost 36k so your company is paying 2/3rds

[Anonymous]

Our country could easily have Medicare for all but for some insane reason MAGA feels that it is better to go bankrupt die young suffer ill health rather than have a “whiff” of socialism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait till you retire or use COBRA it wil be $2400 a month. After paying into Medicare for 40 years each we then get soaked on Part B premiums adjusted by income.

Wow. That's really high.

That's exactly what happens if you are not "poor". If you have saved and planned for retirement, you get soaked with just basic medical insurance from age 65+ and you literally have no choice (or options).
We have paid over $600K+ into Medicare over the years (likely more), yet it will be about $1200 per adult for medical, gap plan G and prescription coverage--that does not include any vision or dental plans.

We plan to retire early. COBRA will be $2400/month and I'd happily pay that until we hit 65 if it was avaiable (it won't unless we retire at 63.5) Because a EPO (not doing HMO, want to keep our doctors and there are no PPOs in our area) will cost over $3K for the 2 of us at age 60 for a Silver plan, and bronze is only $200/month less and that is just MEDICAL. The deducbiles for those "Silver Plans" are $9K/$18K as well. (our COBRA is $1K/$2K).

So yes, you pay a fortune for basic insurance that sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well someone has to pay for everyone who got glp1s off label.

Yup. Some people have genuine health issues that they are not responsible for. But a 5'6 woman with no diabetes weighting 145 lbs jumping on glp1 is ridiculous and we are all paying for it because she wants to be skinny. She should pay for it out of her own damn pocket.

What on earth are you on about? Anyone who is 5’6” and 145lbs isn’t getting a glp1 without paying “out of her own damn pocket” (and she probably isn’t even getting it then).

This is the real problem— extreme ignorance regarding how the healthcare system works.

As someone who was 5'3" and 165lb, I bought my GLP1s with my own money. And, because i am now healthier at 140lb and can exercise again and have lower cholesterol, I probably saved my health insurance money because now I don't need cholesterol meds and have lower risks of major illness that they would cover.

Health costs are super complex, but hospital consolidation, pharmacy approval middlemen who take cuts for formularies, ACA cutbacks are all probably more real version of the problem. But fairly, we are all resentful of how bad our health care system is. It's atrocious.