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Thread: Health Insurance

  1. #1
    Senior Member Highly Favoured's Avatar
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    Health Insurance

    So, I'm recently retired (young) and DH is self-employed. I'm taking Cobra until I can figure out this crazy health insurance thing.

    If I got it right, looking at just a few plans for my state, I can pay about $560/month for both of us, and pay $11,900 deductible. Yearly premiums alone are $6720, and since DH and I are relatively healthy, we will have to pay for everything else since I doubt we ever use $11,900 worth of care in a year.

    Or, we can pay $1670 per month and have a $200 deductible. That's $20,040 per year.

    Yikes! I'm wondering if I can stay on my Cobra benefits forever because it's just over $1000 a month and the deductible is about $200.

    Anyone else think Obamacare stinks to high heaven?

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  3. #2
    Super Moderator Quest's Avatar
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    Take the penalty for no insurance?

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  5. #3
    Super Moderator Quest's Avatar
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    Seriously..I have not looked at it and hope when I retire next year my husband will have a job with insurance for the 3 years before I turn 65..
    The system is a rip off big time!!
    They make you take it...they dictate the cost..and our illustrious Supreme Court made it law..

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    Senior Member Romans828's Avatar
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    I retired (at age 62) in December, and with the exception of needing a prescription written for my inhaler, I never go to the Doctor...

    I looked into Obamacare and found that my monthly premium would run about $600 a month with a whopping $6,000 deductible!!

    Why should someone like me, who rarely visits a Doctor, have to pay that kind of money????? Affordable my left foot!!!!

    I've decided that when I need it, I'll just pay the office visit and for the medication out-of-pocket and believe God for continued good health and the $$$$ to pay for the inhalers when I need them.

    I've been told that the "penalty" is just a couple hundred dollars - I'll pay it, just to obey the laws of the land, but I'm not happy about it at all.

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  9. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Highly Favoured View Post
    So, I'm recently retired (young) and DH is self-employed. I'm taking Cobra until I can figure out this crazy health insurance thing.

    If I got it right, looking at just a few plans for my state, I can pay about $560/month for both of us, and pay $11,900 deductible. Yearly premiums alone are $6720, and since DH and I are relatively healthy, we will have to pay for everything else since I doubt we ever use $11,900 worth of care in a year.

    Or, we can pay $1670 per month and have a $200 deductible. That's $20,040 per year.

    Yikes! I'm wondering if I can stay on my Cobra benefits forever because it's just over $1000 a month and the deductible is about $200.

    Anyone else think Obamacare stinks to high heaven?
    Sorry to hear of this (but happy to hear that you're able to retire!) Just wondering: How high are your Cobra premiums relative to the Obamacare plans in your state? My understanding of Cobra is that it's essentially the same insurance you had when you were employed, except that now you have to pay the full price rather than have your employer subsidize the premiums. In general, it can be quite pricey, because employer-provided plans generally have high levels of coverage. (Actually, that's changing somewhat, many employers, including mine, have been pushing the low-premium high-deductible plans onto their employees as a cost-saving measure.) If I were to lose my current job and go on Cobra, I'd be paying something like 15,000 per year in premiums (myself and wife). That is the total cost of my plan as reported on my W-2.

    As far as staying on Cobra, unfortunately there are limits. Here's a website with information on continuation of Cobra:

    The duration of COBRA continuation coverage is contingent upon whether the coverage is for the employee or the qualifying beneficiaries, and in most cases will be 18 or 36 months depending on the type of qualifying event that leads to COBRA rights.
    ....
    When the qualifying event is the covered employee’s termination of employment or reduction in hours of employment, the COBRA continuation period is for 18 months for both the employee and any dependents on the plan the day before the qualifying event.
    ....
    For all other qualifying events, qualified beneficiaries are entitled to COBRA continuation for 36 months.
    http://www.shrm.org/templatestools/h....sv8hc67l.dpuf


    Something to look at is whether you and DH qualify for the "premium subsidies". Here's a website with a calculator that will permit you to easily determine how much of a subsidy you're entitled to: http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/. Keep in mind that having retired, your family income has substantially dropped, which means that you're more likely to qualify for a subsidy.

    Just as an example, according to that web-based calculator, a married couple making 50K per year in NJ would receive a government premium subsidy of $96 per month and would have to pay $398 per month for a "silver plan". Keep in mind also that even before you meet your deductibles, when you visit an in-network provider, you'll pay insurance-company-negotiated fees rather than market-rate fees. This can make a substantial difference.

    Good luck and let us know how it goes!

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  11. #6
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    Thanks everyone... I'm looking at Medishare as an alternative.

    Our current premiums are about $1000 a month with Cobra. Too bad I can't stay on it indefinitely. DH earns too much so a subsidy will never happen. You would think that I wouldn't complain about the premiums, but logically it just does not make sense to pay that much money for a service that we use a few times a year for annual physical and for odd other complaints. I guess a person needs it in case something catastrophic happens. Three years ago when DH got rear ended (he was stopped and the guy was going 70!!), there were multiple MRIs, X-rays, multiple doctors, and physical therapy, etc., etc. He's still not 100%, but at least he's not walking crookedly any more. If something like that happened to either of us, we could probably eat through any deductible pretty quickly.

    I don't know what the solution is - but this is not what was promised by any stretch of the imagination.

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  13. #7
    Frozen Chosen A.J.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Highly Favoured View Post
    So, I'm recently retired (young) and DH is self-employed. I'm taking Cobra until I can figure out this crazy health insurance thing.

    If I got it right, looking at just a few plans for my state, I can pay about $560/month for both of us, and pay $11,900 deductible. Yearly premiums alone are $6720, and since DH and I are relatively healthy, we will have to pay for everything else since I doubt we ever use $11,900 worth of care in a year.

    Or, we can pay $1670 per month and have a $200 deductible. That's $20,040 per year.

    Yikes! I'm wondering if I can stay on my Cobra benefits forever because it's just over $1000 a month and the deductible is about $200.

    Anyone else think Obamacare stinks to high heaven?


    Move back to Canada!






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  15. #8
    You're paying for all the "sick" people. I liken it to going to the emergency room and being charged $10 for a Tylenol to subsidize all the folks that come in with no insurance or no ability to pay. It sucks, but it's the world we live in where some people pay nothing, and others pick up the tab. You are penalized for being responsible. Basically.

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  17. #9
    I'll be ready for Medicare soon, so I've been studying insurance as well. What a mess!

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    FresnoJoe (09-29-2015)

  19. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by curly sue View Post
    I'll be ready for Medicare soon, so I've been studying insurance as well. What a mess!
    Sadly, I know several people who are eager to grow old in order to qualify for Medicare!!!

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    FresnoJoe (09-29-2015)

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