Originally Posted by
Avroman
It's now through United Healthcare and it's basically Obamacare. It's a high deductible plan that still costs you almost $500 per month for family and you are looking at ballpark of $6000 in deductible before United starts doing much... and they love to deny even adding bills toward your deductible. For as far forward as we've come in pay, we've gone at least as far back in health care. Best to budget for at least $12000 in health care costs for a family plan, probably ends up being more... But for some reason universal health care is a bad thing???
Avroman is somewhat right although he still overestimates it and doesn’t know a deductible from an out of pocket maximum. Here are the facts...
Monthly premium for a family is $411. Company provides $1350 of funds each year that rolls over to pay the $2700 deductible (which triggers 80% coverage) and there is a $6000 out of pocket maximum. So truly, the very most you could spend if your family was constantly sick and in the hospital is:
$411x12 + ($6000-$1350) which is $9500 all pre tax since there is a health savings account (HSA). Shouldn’t have a problem staying in network with UHC but if you didn’t that could raise the out of pocket maximum by $4000 which is $13500 total out of pocket, which most of would be tax free if you took advantage of the HSA (premiums are pre tax as are $6000 in HSA contributions). The only way you could get that high was if something very very serious came up like cancer or a highly invasive surgery that required follow up care from a specialist.
Best case scenario your family is healthy with just a few visits here and there (preventative is free) and the majority of the company’s $1350 plus whatever small amount you defer pre tax each month rolls over year after year to pay that $6000 out of pocket maximum when someone gets seriously injured or ill. All you pay in this case is the $411 a month. The HSA is great if you plan ahead, are healthy going in and allocate a bit of pre tax money each month.
There is also a PPO plan available but premiums are sky high for the family. $900 a month which would be 25% of a reserve FO’s paycheck.
I don’t think that our insurance is industry leading, maybe it’s even slightly below average for the industry and definitely worse than any major. It’s something that hasn’t been improved since the bankruptcy. The figures for an individual are all around much much lower than family coverage for what that’s worth.
The company includes the benefits guide with all this information when they invite you to the interview so there are no surprises.