In reply to nervousdog:
We pay 100% of premiums for employees and their families. I believe it's the right thing to do, and will continue to do it despite what the government tells me I should/shouldn't do.
But let's face it, more and more people ignore what they know to be right and instead do what offers them, personally, the most immediate payoff. Then they seem shocked and angry to find themselves living in a world that basically sucks, and facing a government that is expanding in size exponentially as it tries to legislate people into not taking shortcuts solely to line their own pockets.
Edit: I post the above completely aware of the irony that the government is run by special interests that are solely concerned with taking shortcuts to line their own pockets. Which basically reinforces my point: Not sucking starts at home; no one else is going to do it for you, and you can't wait for the other guy to go first.
Margie
I'm cracking up over here at the people thinking that this is an issue with the insurance companies.
The insurance company wasn't charging $171 previously. You can't buy coverage that cheap.
What's happened here is that your employer apparently isn't covering the bulk of it any more.
Premiums WILL probably be going up (by premiums, i mean what the insurance company charges) with the recent changes, but not by over 500%.
I believe my premiums are somewhere along the line of $900/month for SWMBO and myself.
Selfinsured hospital insurance FTW!!! $88/month for the unlimited children family plan. If your spouse works there too, the insurance for the family drops to $0/month.
Crap, thank goodness for being married with no kids and having a CDHP/HSA plan at work.
I pay $2000 PER YEAR for health/dental/vision for both of us. And the company throws $800/year into my HSA plan and I put another $800 in.
z31maniac wrote:
Crap, thank goodness for being married with no kids and having a CDHP/HSA plan at work.
I pay $2000 PER YEAR for health/dental/vision for both of us. And the company throws $800/year into my HSA plan and I put another $800 in.
I can personally guarantee that your actual premium isn't $2000/yr. 
Marjorie Suddard wrote:
In reply to nervousdog:
We pay 100% of premiums for employees and their families. I believe it's the right thing to do, and will continue to do it despite what the government tells me I should/shouldn't do.
I've always thought GRM was run by good people and this information makes me wish I knew something about magazines so I could work for you. My answer to you was just to illustrate how the OP's premium could have been so low previously.
Marjorie Suddard wrote:
But let's face it, more and more people ignore what they know to be right and instead do what offers them, personally, the most immediate payoff. Then they seem shocked and angry to find themselves living in a world that basically sucks, and facing a government that is expanding in size exponentially as it tries to legislate people into not taking shortcuts solely to line their own pockets.
I couldn't agree more.
I'm also seeing more and more companies touting "benefits" that the majority of people have no use for.
You just got a pay cut. You are just seeing what your company actually paid for you. Now you have to pay it or buy it elsewhere. Group healthcare relies on healthy people to pay for unhealthy people. If you are healthy you are paying more through work than you will privately. Shop around for personal insurance. Look at what you use and insure accordingly. If you never go to the doctor and never use prescriptions seriously consider a higher deductible.
OUCH that has to hurt! I know people that don't even make that much a month...
Healthcare costs for a family are exceedingly high. I ran the numbers a few years ago, and realized that I was better off with the "lowest cost" plan, which basically means that we pay the first $4800 of health care costs out of pocket. After that, we pay 20% of the cost until we hit our "Out of Pocket Max" of $6800. Now, some things don't count towards the "Out of Pocket Max", so the actual outlay is higher. On top of this, I pay a monthly premium for the plan. The other option has a far higher monthly premium, co-pays for every visit, and your total outlay has no cap. If you run up $50K in healthcare bills, you'll continue paying 10% of the cost (your portion after the deductible is met) until you run out of money.
We budget around 10-12K for healthcare costs per year, and my company pays a portion, as well.
What's enlightening is that for whatever we pay, we see the billed amount vs. the amount that the insurance company actually pays (we pay the insurance company's rate on everything). We've seen the bill for $900 from the doctor for literally a 10 minute visit. The part the insurance company pays is something like $100.
+1 on GRM paying 100% of healthcare for both their employees and their families - it's great to see some companies are still run the right way!
92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:
z31maniac wrote:
Crap, thank goodness for being married with no kids and having a CDHP/HSA plan at work.
I pay $2000 PER YEAR for health/dental/vision for both of us. And the company throws $800/year into my HSA plan and I put another $800 in.
I can personally guarantee that your actual premium isn't $2000/yr.
My wife and I pay our own insurance and it's $1,386.72/year including dental. It is high deductible, but even if we paid the full deductible and the premiums it wouldn't be as expensive as the OP's insurance.
92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:
I'm cracking up over here at the people thinking that this is an issue with the insurance companies.
The insurance company wasn't charging $171 previously. You can't buy coverage that cheap.
What's happened here is that your employer apparently isn't covering the bulk of it any more.
Premiums WILL probably be going up (by premiums, i mean what the insurance company charges) with the recent changes, but not by over 500%.
I believe my premiums are somewhere along the line of $900/month for SWMBO and myself.
Exactly what I was thinking. What has been part of your compensation, and a benefit to working where you do just stopped being that.
According to my benefits, at a HUGE company, my single person healthcare cost is $500 a month. It goes up very quickly per person added. Thankfully, my company has that as part of my compensation. (and MMM apparenlty does that as well).
(same can be said about Pensions- they were part of my compensation and the contract that I signed- I should get that, regardless- just like for any employee of any workforce)
Sorry you just got a major pay cut like that.
dculberson wrote:
92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:
z31maniac wrote:
Crap, thank goodness for being married with no kids and having a CDHP/HSA plan at work.
I pay $2000 PER YEAR for health/dental/vision for both of us. And the company throws $800/year into my HSA plan and I put another $800 in.
I can personally guarantee that your actual premium isn't $2000/yr.
My wife and I pay our own insurance and it's $1,386.72/year including dental. It is high deductible, but even if we paid the full deductible and the premiums it wouldn't be as expensive as the OP's insurance.
Fair enough, but i highly doubt Z31's policy is that cheap due to the alphabet soup he threw around.
I realize the company subsidizes a portion of my premium as my compensation......you aren't the only that knows that. But to be fair, when I was 25 (30 now) and purchased a health insurance plan while I was contract labor, I only paid $95 month for a high deductible plan.
Yes, it's a high deductible plan. When I visit the doc, I pay 100% of the cost, but pay it with my HSA account using funds the company gives me and non-taxed income that I contribute.
z31maniac wrote:
I realize the company subsidizes a portion of my premium as my compensation......you aren't the only that knows that. But to be fair, when I was 25 (30 now) and purchased a health insurance plan while I was contract labor, I only paid $95 month for a high deductible plan.
Yes, it's a high deductible plan. When I visit the doc, I pay 100% of the cost, but pay it with my HSA account using funds the company gives me and non-taxed income that I contribute.
I'm with ya.
$95/month would get you a single policy "catastrophic" coverage plan these days still, i believe. But once you're talking a family with wife and kids, you're pretty much berkeleyed no matter what. 
Companies budget for employee compensation packages. Whether they pay you a slightly higher or lower salary or pay more or less or your health insurance is semantics.
I heard a blurb on the radio that insurance plans (as billed by insurance companies) for next year are seeing something like a $200/mo increase over last year, and the primary blame cited IS Obamacare. Take it for what you will.
Puh-lease. What they aren't telling you is that insurance plans HAVE been rising at that rate. For years. I know, because I've been the one paying them.
I'm sure lots of employees will see their premium responsibilities rise "because of Obamacare," but I'm equally sure that will be because employers will use it as a convenient excuse to get out from under some of what they've been paying, and transfer that cost to the employee. Thanks to the radio, most folks will buy it, too.
Margie
scardeal wrote:
I heard a blurb on the radio that insurance plans (as billed by insurance companies) for next year are seeing something like a $200/mo increase over last year, and the primary blame cited IS Obamacare. Take it for what you will.
Blame and reality are rarely the same- at least in corporate America. If they called it "Obamacare"- then the odds of trying to make you vote a certain way is very high. Or at least make you mad enough to go out on the web and post angry things. Which worked, apparently.
I'm sorry, did someone say Romneycare? 
/flounder
In reply to alfadriver:
Bonus points if they used the president's middle name.
The best the left can come up with for Romney is "Mittens". Mittens sounds cute and huggable. Barack "Hussein" Obama said in a really mean voice is kind of scary.
Marjorie Suddard wrote:
Puh-lease. What they aren't telling you is that insurance plans HAVE been rising at that rate. For years. I know, because I've been the one paying them.
So... by 2020, we'll all owe our souls to the insurance companies. If what you're saying is the truth, then we'll all be slaves to the insurance companies eventually. Welcome to the new totalitarianism, a return to wage slavery.
92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:
I'm sorry, did someone say Romneycare?
/flounder
Do Republicans still call it Obamneycare or was that just for the primaries?
scardeal wrote:
Marjorie Suddard wrote:
Puh-lease. What they aren't telling you is that insurance plans HAVE been rising at that rate. For years. I know, because I've been the one paying them.
So... by 2020, we'll all owe our souls to the insurance companies. If what you're saying is the truth, then we'll all be slaves to the insurance companies eventually. Welcome to the new totalitarianism, a return to wage slavery.
Well, no. The price of everything is going up.
There's a payout percentage mandate out now. The days of insurance companies raising premiums just to raise them to make more money are gone.
Otto Maddox wrote:
92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:
I'm sorry, did someone say Romneycare?
/flounder
Do Republicans still call it Obamneycare or was that just for the primaries?
LOL!!!!
I can't honestly say i've heard that term, but i love it!
alfadriver wrote:
Blame and reality are rarely the same- at least in corporate America. If they called it "Obamacare"- then the odds of trying to make you vote a certain way is very high. Or at least make you mad enough to go out on the web and post angry things. Which worked, apparently.
I think it might have been on NPR, actually. But then again, it might not have been. I don't remember for sure.
If I'm angry about Obamacare, it's far more about other aspects than the financial impact of it.
