APCLurker

Hoping I can get some last-second opinions on our health (medical) insurance.

I/we have never used the medical care plans available to us. Instead have always used my spouse's better plan. I have never even really looked at any details of the dal offerings.

I will leave out the sordid details, but I find myself at the last second (as in little more than 1.5 days notice), needing to sign up for one of our medical plans and have no clue what is optimal. It would possibly be just me, no conditions or recurring medications or anything like that, or possibly me and two kids, both with a perscription need (nothing major or wildly expensive etc).

Any advice?

And yes, l am still wondering how this situation can even be remotely legal/possible but that is a story and discussion for another time.

Thanks

Planetrain

IMHO:
Youre halfway through the year, if you’re relatively healthy and just need some catastrophic insurance, get the Bronze HSA. Cheapest plan and will cover you for the big items. It covers you for the small items too. Figure out what the premium differences are between Gold and Bronze, take that amount and use it as an HSA contribution. If you’re don’t use the insurance, you’ve saved all that plan difference money for a future year. If you use a small amount of the insurance, you’re still saving money with the bronze. If you use it a medium amount, you’re probably about even money with the other plans. If you have something extra catastrophic, you’re still covered, it’s going to cost a little more in coinsurance, but this (according to you) is unlikely.
You only have to sweat the decision 6 more months and then you can reevaluate at open enrollment without time pressure.
Good luck

Edit: One other caveat, going with silver HSA will allow you a little more Delta Reward dollars if you think you can jump through their low-hanging hoops, but only pay for the premiums for 6 months. More future benefit for a shorter length of premiums.

tennisguru

Your two basic options are the DPMP and one of the HSA plans. The DPMP is very pricey. I have friends with tons of annual medical expenses and they're on the Gold HSA because it's still cheaper (DPMP premiums + max out of pocket exceeds HSA premiums + Max OOP-delta contributions to HSA).

HSA's also have a ton of benefits since you can save and invest in your HSA. The ideal situation is to max out your HSA every year (~7000 for a family?) and never touch that money and instead pay whatever medical expenses you have out of your own pocket. Then you invest all that HSA money for many years. So at retirement you've got an account balance of tens of thousands or more that was all tax free going in + tax free growth. There is no time limit for reimbursements, so save ALL your medical receipts and you can start pulling money out 30 years after you paid the bill and it's all tax free. Of course you can use it for any retirement medical expenses you have as well. So it's tax free going in AND tax free coming out for medical expenses. And after a certain age (59.5?) it basically acts as an IRA as you can take money out for anything without any extra penalty.

tennisguru

Yeah don't go bronze, going silver will probably pay for itself with the increased delta health dollars.

SideSticker

1+ for Bronze plan. Put the savings in your HSA.

hercretired

curious, do retired Delta pilots have any company funded medical insurance options in retirement, or funded from their annuity/similar mechanism?

APCLurker

Thanks for the replies so far folks.

Denny Crane

If one retires before 65 there are two options until turning 65. One is the Delta Pilots Medical Plan which you have to pay 51% which works out to be about $550/month currently. The second option is the Bronze HSA. Not sure what that currently is. For someone who took the VEOP (early retirement offer from last summer), Delta is paying 100% of medical for up to 24 months or age 65, whichever comes first.

Denny

iaflyer

In short, the HSA and Gold HRA plan cover the same items at the same percentage, the difference is how much the deductible is - ie, how much "risk" do you want to take. At our income levels and typical expenses, we can handle paying the high deductibles and essentially gamble on whether we're healthy or not. The DPMP has a higher up front cost, but the deductible is low and seems to be a better overall plan in terms of how it pays but it's expensive. As I understand, those with serious medical issues in their family and/or high prescription drug costs do well on DPMP.

The HSA plans let you save and invest health care $$ that you don't spend. The Bronze plan is cheaper, but the deductible is high. You can take those dollars you didn't pay in premiums and put in the HSA. If you don't use much medical (preventive care like check ups are covered at 100%) over the year, put the different between the premium for Bronze and Gold into the HSA and can be invested and you win. If you have lots of medical expenses, you can just either pay them out of pocket and leave the $$ in the HSA for another day (or retirement) or take them out and pay. In the end, it's about a wash for the HSA. The HSA has a lot of tax benefits for our income level.

When you report a "life event" on DeltaNet, you enter the date of the event (losing medical coverage) and the Delta health coverage starts that day. It would take a few days for it all get entered, accounts setup online, etc but it's effective right away.