The Fleecing of college students, where does it end?! If raising rent prices and paying about 10-15c more per gallon of gas here in provo isnt enough(not to mention that UT is still about 20c above the national gas average), how about charging students the rest of their non existent paycheck for sub par health insurance. Maybe some of have experienced this? a little something called paying $400-$500 a semester for student health insurance...it gets lumped into tuition and is automatically charged so im sure there are plenty of students who go throughout their entire student career and never knew just how much they were paying. Well, after a year of this, I'm out! But we do need insurance. I've been looking at few different options to keep our monthly payment low, which means a high deductible. This is fine since Tare and I really dont go to the doctors much, and our next big expense would be whenever we have a kid. So, I was thinking of getting a plan that allowed me to start an HSA. I found one recently that covers both of us for about $70+ a month (thats a$5000 deductible, 7mil coverage, etc).
Without an HSA it would drop to about $50+ a month. So, I wanted to post this and see if any of you kind people who read our periodic ramblings knew if this was a good way to go, and what has worked for you.
We are open to any and all suggestions, or rants about insurance in general...but be advised if you post anything about moving to universal, socialized national Heathcare, be prepared to have a very LONG follow up from me! ;)
Thanks!
11 comments:
I could rant all the live long day about this. It is going to cost us somewhere between $10K and $15K (yes thats out of pocket) to have a healthy baby WITH insurance. I find that its best to be an illegal alien and just get everything for free than a responsible and contributing citizen.
Hey! We have an HSA with our insurance plan from Ryan's company and we LOVE it! We feel like its a great way to save up money for those 2 or 3 times a year when we need to go to the doctor and any extra things like prescriptions or dentist visits. Its nice though because its in a total separate account and its only for health related expenses. Ryan's company matches what he contributes to it, so that has been an added bonus. Ryan's whole hope in getting the HSA was to save and save and then have enough money to just foot the bill whenever we decide to have a child and it just slowly comes out of our pocket little by little. ANYWAYS...hope that helps! Ryan knows more about it than I do so you could always talk to him!
Brady....I have lots of thoughts on insurance....call me:)
Aunt Kath
Unfortunately, we aren't a good source for this sort of thing. We were insurance free for the first year or so of marriage. Then, while carrie was prego we were below poverty and medicaid was our insurer...thanks middle class.
Now that we have city-paid benny's we don't pay a dime and our annual family deductable is only 1G. sorry we aren't much help. Sounds good, though, for what you've already dug up. Best of luck
-brad
Brady...so weird that you are asking about this because this is actually what I have been doing since I left the Buckle. An HSA is a very good idea because it is a "health savings account" which means...it's a savings account. It rolls over from year to year (as long as you stay with your current provider for insurance) and you can use if for virtually every eligible expense in the IRS publication (501 and 502 i think?). Make sure you don't get an FSA or flexible spending account with your high deductible plan because that account expires at the end of your plan year, "use it or loose it" is what we call it. The main thing with a high deductible is that you are basically planning on paying your small medical bills and really your insurance would cover you in the case of something really big (baby, major medical) which you would obviously incur more than a couple hundred dollars in expenses. This is a very smart plan (often referred to as consumer driven health plans--high deductibles, low premiums) if you are young and healthy. Especially because you are being smart because you are putting the money away in your HSA in the case that you would ever have to fund your high deductible. Most insurance companies offer a broker service where they shop providers plans because they can get a better deal for you. You should be able to get a fairly good plan for around 100-150/month. Just keep in mind that your deductible is often different (this would be the fine print) if just one of you is accessing the benefits or if you both are. Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!
I'm impressed you figured that student health insurance was a rip this early on! We are actually looking into an HSA right now thought it may not be the way to go for us. We have to do self employment ins which adds another facet to the problem. We're on terrible ins right now, just for the sake to have ins until we can find what works for a family of 6 (w/4 being accident prone children:) and being self employed. Tricky! Good luck!
Thanks for all the info everyone! Its good to have smart friends and Fam :)
Brady and Taryn,
As a healthcare worker and being experienced in the baby business, I would recomend looking into a plan that's a higher monthly premium, lower deductible. And make SURE you look at the out of pocket maximum per year. The most Clark and I will pay out of pocket on health care for our baby in December is 2K, no matter what. And my deductible is only 250$ per year. With me on Select health and him on the student health plan we pay about 250 per month. He has actually had a good experience with the BYU plan, too. He had to have an MRI a couple months ago and his insurance covered almost all of it. So there's my two cents!
Boyf and girf. We have also been trying to figure out our insurance (along with everyone else in the blogging world it would appear). I would like to know what you guys end up deciding to do. I have insurance through my work, but Jesse doesn't. So mostly we're just trying to figure out if it would be smarter to get a plan together (my work will give me would have paid) or get Jesse his own plan and I keep mine because it has really good coverage. Anyway we should discuss this matter more on the next international thurs. I vote to change in to thurs because of school ruining everything.
I know we have already talked about it...but when you crunch the numbers, the only way that you will come out ahead with a higher premium, low-deductible plan is if you end up with a medical emergency within the near future. Otherwise, you are just beginning the vicious cycle of flushing your money down the drain each month...just like car insurance. Taking the hit early on, when you don't have any pressing medical issues, and when you are both healthy is going to pay off with the HSA route. Traditional insurance, no matter how high or low the deductible/premium offers no chance to actually get ahead...you will simply get by month to month...and you'll have to pay the same entry fee to even be in the game every month, and you start over from scratch 30 days later. With the HSA, no matter what, you are working your way to the point where you will pay the least amount out of pocket, PLUS...you can be really smart, and invest the pre-tax dollars (you have to understand compounding interest to really appreciate that...) Also, someone above had said something about the HSA rolling over only if you stick with the same insurance...that's actually not true...your HSA can follow you the rest of your life, any insurance provider etc...The only stipulation is that you have to be enrolled in an HSA elligible insurance policy to legally deposit money into that specific savings account, and not be taxed. I guess my big push for HSA's is that its the most independent insurance choice you have... get ahead of the game, and take more control...start now while we're young and don't have any real dependents or medical issues!!
All good advice. I just want to add my two cents. I think it really depends on YOUR situation and what YOU want. In Kev's family they have had A LOT of medical emergencies and such so even though there are many positives to high ded and low monthly for US we prefer to have the peace of mind that IFFFF something were to happen then we would be ok. Chances are that we will be fine, but like I said it's all about what you want. So no real advice about which plan to go with just that I think you should determine what you want and what's important to you. Also I totally agree that national healthcare would be a DISASTER. I will back you up on that one!
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