2018 Health Insurance Increases

We're looking at CHM today and a Catholic share that was recommended by friends. Trying to get a plan in place early in case there is a lot of shock.

We also got some info from our existing broker this morning. The CO insurers are jacking up rates on all PPOs and trying to nudge people into HMOs. This is happening in both the small group and individual markets. But the HMO rates for '19 aren't out yet!!! So much fail.

There is a PPO available to us at our current premium with an $8K deductible (up from our current $6K). Remember when the Dims said "you can't afford to get sick!" Show me the family has $8K lying around just in case. If I had that, I'd have more C&R/milsurps! [LOL]

Again, these are not insurance products anymore.

I'm almost at the point that I would just want a catastrophic plan that starts at $10K and goes to $1M. Maybe a maternity rider for the next five years. And that's it.

This is going to get a lot worse... The more rates climb the more people will go without insurance pushing more cost on those of us trying to take care of our families.

We've looked at the Catholic ones, hoping to keep it "in house", but CHM is usually the better option -- at least for us. Only downside is their reimbursement window is typically longer than the Catholic ones.

If you go with CHM and do us as a referrer, we get one month "free". I'd be happy to split that with you so you get $150 off. Feel free to PM me for our name and account # info for the referral.

NOTE: A few people have asked me about CHM in the past and I made the same offer. We did receive one referral discount once, but I had no idea who the person was (since there were a few) so I was unable to split it with them. If that was you, dear reader, please let me know so I can make good on that offer!

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Originally Posted by hollohas

And ^this was the specific purpose of the ACA. It purposefully made costs go through the roof so people would accept full commie single payer in the future.

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QFT

What a mess for everyone that needs insurance. I was very happy to get on Medicare with a $600 a year premium for a supplement for the 20% not paid by Medicare. Still have a $2000 deductible on the supplement, but this is at least tolerable.

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Originally Posted by Skip

We're looking at CHM today...

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Wife and I have been with CHM for several years. Haven't needed it yet but friends we have that have used it say it works fine.

One interesting upside is that since you're "self pay" on your routine maintenance stuff, you often get better service at a discounted price (for example, my wife has been getting 3D mammograms since we switched and they give her a self-pay discount. 3D is the way to go and many insurances won't pay for it as routine, only if you have to have a secondary screening.

We pay 300/mo for the two of us, plus about $50/quarter for the extra "Brother's Keeper" (which is basically a catastrophic insurance plan that takes over if we get over the $250k or whatever the cap on the Gold tier plan is ... its either 250k 500k or 1million, but I don't remember for sure).

ETA also the "deductible" (put that in quotes because technically its not a deductible since CHM is technically not insurance) is $500 per incident.

Medi-Share is another Christian healthcare insurance company. I've been told by people that use it that it's awesome. I'm going to look into it as well.

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Originally Posted by hollohas

Medi-Share is another Christian healthcare insurance company. I've been told by people that use it that it's awesome. I'm going to look into it as well.

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Some friends use Medi-share, and they like it, but their lifestyle agreement (tobacco, alcohol, etc) is much more strict than CHM. (Or at least it was when we were shopping).

Elections have consequences.....

The way I understand my HSA is that I can only keep it if I have a high deductible plan. Part of my hesitancy to try CHM was that it's not really insurance, let alone high deductible. I suppose I could fund a normal account the same way I find my HSA, but it's definitely not as good of a retirement vehicle.

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Originally Posted by Irving

I was listening to something talking about how premiums aren't going up this year, and some are even going down. They cited something about prices having gone up so much already that they can't go up anymore. That sounded ridiculous, so it might have been within the framework of a law or something. Either way, it was clearly a piece trying to make things sound Rosey.

Fentonite: When the lady came to get my insurance info, I laughingly told her, "As long as it's under ten thousand dollars." She said, "Oh, I'm almost SURE that it will be." I was like, "Ummmm, I was just joking."

I assumed it would be at least $2,000 just because it was ER related, but was floored when that bill came in. All I could think about was how I needed some nurse on the side to bandage me up like super heroes have. I would have paid someone $500 cash in a heart beat if I had suspected.

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I'd have stitched it up myself for those numbers... [Rant1]