Health benefits 4

[dextermech]

At my current job, I have to pay $185 per WEEK for health insurance. The employer pays 50%, we pay 50%. No dental, no vision. Have any of you ever HEARD if benefits this bad? It's really starting to tick me off...

 

[winpop123]

Sounds insane to me...

I pay about $65 a week for a family plan through blue cross and blue shield. My company is small, about 500 employees worlwide at just under 100m per year in sales

 

[ivymike]

I'm in the USA (for reference)

it does sound very high to me too. My current employer is a large company (fortune 500), so maybe a bad comparison, but I pay $60/mo for a family plan. $1600/yr deductible. Could also opt for $300/mo with a much lower deductible.

My last job was $80/mo family plan, with essentially no deductible (just 80/20 co-pays). That was a small-ish company (~$60M/yr revenue).

 

[HVACctrl]

I considered the fact that the company could possibly get a better tax break by paying heath care costs rather than increased salary.

That would be OK. They say they would match $600 per month towards my insurance (which I STILL find hard to fathom), then give me $400 towards and outside policy instead. Surely the $200 defecit would more than offset the tax savings. But no cigar.

The inflexibility there and the unbelievable prices (compared to previous jobs, my wife's company, rates I've heard from other people) tells me something doesn't add up. To me, it seems a phantom benefit because no one is really going to step up and devote $600 per month of their own money. So now the company doesn't have to either.

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[IRstuff]

Medical insurance is quite Byzantium in general. However, the biggest differentiator in cost is the benefit. That is tied in with the the size of the risk pool. If your plan allows you to go to any doctor anytime, you pay for that privilege and added expense.

We have a similar deal with our insurance. Go to the preferred provider with pre-negotiated rates and you pay $15 only, while going out of network incurs a 40% of cost copay.

Without spending a few hours of comparison, there's no way to realistically judge the merits of any given plan. I remember spending about 6 hours trying to sort my way through Medicare Part D last year for my father. Luckily, his HMO had already taken care of everything.

TTFN

 

[pso311]

So it's common to have to partial pay for your benefits? I've been at this company since graduating 2.5 years ago, and haven't paid a penny for benefits. Medical, dental vision included.

Looking at some of the figures, a prospective employeer would have to offer me a 20% raise just to get me in the same take-home pay ballpark.

That's absolute craziness!!

 

[IRstuff]

True enough.

For companies that have labor-intensive content, reducing medical benefits is a quick and dirty way to stay cost-competitive.

TTFN

 

[tripleZ]

Small companies usually get nailed when it comes to health benefits. Obviously you don't get the volume discounts that some larger employers receive. I'll be honest, I don't know anybody in WI who is not paying at least a portion of their health insurance costs. The most lucrative health care plans in my area are for UAW workers and public employees (teachers, city staff, etc.) For me, it runs around $125 a month (single not family). There are advantages to being single w/o kids! Our big disadvantage in my area of Wisconsin is that there are really only two players in town, so prices don't need to be very competitive. Thus we pay a fairly high price for the services we receive.

One twist that my family experienced when we had our company in Pennsylvania was that health insurance tends to adjust itself to the median age of your company, plus the payments the insurance company is required to pay. What small businesses often find is that their premiums are much higher when the median employee age is much higher. The insurance company's logic is that they are more likely to have to payout for older workers. The same seems to hold true for family plans. If your company is comprised of single, younger workers in their 20s & 30s, your premiums will likely be much less than a company with a median age of 45 and that is heavily vested in family plans. If you have someone in a small company have a quadruple bypass (like my machining supervisor had), lets just say you WILL see an across-the-board rate increase the next year around.

 

[HVACctrl]

triplez,
Good points. I'm not sure about the history of my company before I got here. I do know one guy passed away while here, the owner is 55, there is another 50-somthing year-old guy, a few in their 30's (myself included) and just about evryone is married with kids. I'd say the average age is 40 to 45. Its a small company- about 15 people total.

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[pmover]

something else to consider . . .

i went for about 2 years or so without insurance. every time i went to the doctor, i mentioned that i had no health insurance. as such, i requested a discount and i assured the physician that i would pay his bill, in cash and in full. not one time did a physician deny my request. i even had a major examination/diagnosis and told the same to the clinic conducting the examination/diagnosis. to my astonishment, i receive a 50% discount, agreed to a 90-day contract, and paid the bill, in full, within the 90 days. now that i think about it, there was one exception, but not a big deal either.

since then, i have always considered just having a catastrophic health insurance policy (for obviously bad/costly health matters). otherwise, simply pay the physician in cash and do away with the adminstration costs.

not really a good plan/practice, but it met my needs for the time (somewhat still does today.

something to ponder . . .
-pmover

 

[IRstuff]

Essentially, that's what our company does.

They are the insurer, while Cigna manages the plan and money. Given the size of the company, it's a way to tightly manage the cost of the program by tweaking the benefits up or down year-to-year to maintain a reasonable level of coverage for the outlay.

TTFN

 

[tripleZ]

Pmover,

I guess I'm a proponent of paying for health insurance no matter what the cost (although I'm not sure how the catastrophic policy works). The big risk you have is the difference between hospital bills and doctors' bills. Sure, the doctors' bills are generally reasonable, especially if it's just a GP visit or a consultation. The problem you have is surgery or anything that requires an extended stay in a hospital.

Ask someone who has had a child lately or an operation what their hospital bill reads. There are usually two sections to the bill: what the hospital would bill an individual and what a hospital bills the insurance carrier. The amount billed to the insurance carrier is substantially less. Without that insurance carrier though, you'd receive a pretty hefty bill from the hospital for services rendered. As most posters on this board are professionals, they'd likely be paying that off over a long period of time. And with the reformed bankruptcy laws, they wouldn't have an easy out without losing major assets.

To put it in perspective, my cousin's last child would have run her in the mid $20s w/o insurance. My father's gall bladder surgery and hospital stay 5 years ago would have been in the high $40s without the insurance.

Honestly, I see insurance in the US as a necessary evil in case something really bad happens to you. Although with many plans having lifetime $1M caps, it doesn't take too many accidents to max out. And hope to hell you don't have something happen to you prior to attempting to obtain insurance. Pre-existing conditions can be very costly with regards to rates, and sometimes keep individuals from even getting insurance.

 

[KENAT]

Sounds high but...

I'm from the UK originally and am still getting used to this health insurance malarky.

Also I've been spoilt. My wifes insurance is really good and costs her nothing.

We decided to add the insurance from my place as second insurance but even for the PPO option with UHC it's a lot less than yours. If I recall correctly I pay less a month than you do a week.

When we were looking around a year or so ago we could get reasonable insurance for the family for a little over $300 but I guess maybe we didn't read some of the small print.

 

[GregLocock]

In Oz, mine is about $55 a month. That is subsidised by the Government (they've got mates in the insurance business), and is some sort of weird overlay over the public health system, which actually does the bulk of the serious stuff.

Luckily I've never had to find out how it actually works.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[Beggar]

I just heard a clip on the radio this morning discussing health insurance and the difficulties that people are having finding affordable, quality health insurance.

According to them (KGO radio), health insurance premiums have risen by 78% since 2000.

Of course, employers are shifting more and more of that to employees. At the same time, the costs of care are rising dramatically (I've heard on average about 10-15% per year).

There is a health care crisis in the US. Many people don't see it, though, because they have good coverage from their employers.

Along with the folly of US foreign policy and the national debt, this is the most severe and urgent issue facing our country and yet it's not receiving a whole lot of attention.

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[IRstuff]

It's received plenty of attention, but one side is simply putting their heads in the sand, hoping that it will go away, because they refuse to contemplate universal insurance and the other side doesn't want to contemplate rationing of care.

TTFN

 

[Beggar]

I suppose that's true in a sense.

Here in California, the governor just vetoed a bill that would institute a single payer system.

Meanwhile, the uninsured/underinsured continue to be gouged by hospitals that charge them more because they're not covered by a big group contract or pharmaceuticals, the world-wide cost of which is subsidized by American consumers because most other countries control drug prices.

The patent laws in the US also allow the drug companies to repeatedly reclassify a drug so as to extend its patent protection and their market monopolies.

I think a big part of the problem is that so many people are still covered by so-called "cadillac" plans. To them, there's no crisis.

--------------------
How much do YOU owe?

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[IRstuff]

Gouged? More than half the patients my wife sees in ER and urgent care at the county hospital don't pay anything. The hospital is so poor that it can't afford computerized patient records because it spends all its money funding uninsured patient visits.

Patent rights expire at their normal term. The companies can submit new applications or modifications of old drugs for new patents, but the old drug is open game for generics, as seen in Rogaine, Claritin, etc., which both have patented successors, but the original products are available as generics.


TTFN

 

[KENAT]

It's got to be said I used to think the national health service in the UK was nothing special.

I hadn't come to use it that much, certainly not for anything too serious.

The bigggest things you'd here about were long waiting lists, mainly for procedures but even several days just to see your GP sometimes, that and the fact that different regions of the country had better health care than others etc.

When I came to the States my Wife (US born & bread) tried convincing me that the health care here was a lot better. If figured given that except for medicare/county facilities etc as you were effectively 'paying' for it (either direct or through insurance) that maybe she'd be right and they'd be more concerned with patient (customer) satisfaction.

So far I have yet to be convinced.

Sure if you have great insurance and live near a really good hospital, doctors etc then it's great.

If you don't have good insurance or even just live a ways from any really major medical facilities it sucks.

In Ridgecrest CA the few times I have been I frequently end up waiting an hour or so after my scheduled apointment to actually see the doctor and the repuation of the local hospital isn't that good.

For the majority of Americans I'm not sure it's better than the UK system despite the fact that the UK system is seriously flawed.

 

[corus]

Living in the UK, I'm not sure what KENAT heard, but it doesn't seem to be what they experienced. Sadly you hear a lot of things, if you read the wrong newspapers. My experience is that I see my GP either the same day or the next. The recent changes in the NHS is that you now see your GP within 2 days maximum. Sadly some people now complain that they want to see their GP in 3 or 4 days time, when they're not so busy. The aussie expression of wingeing pommes comes to mind. Thankfully I've never had any serious problems but a close relative with a serious illness was diagnosed, admitted into hospital, and operated on within the week, and no bills at the end of it. You never read about those stories in the press.

The frightening thing about reading these posts from americans is what happens when they're not working, or retired say. Who pays the insurance then? For me I have nothing to worry about. I pay my national health insurance of about 6% of my salary while I am working, and that is full coverage from cradle to grave, employed, unemployed, retired, or child. I have yet to see any serious flaws in the NHS, other than from what I 'hear'. Of course if I think the NHS isn't been run properly I can always vote for someone else to run it.

corus

 

[KENAT]

Corus,

I left the UK back in 03 when some of the reforms were starting to come in. Sounds like at least on getting to see your GP it's got better. I frequently had to wait several days and then, at least at my Doctor growing up, frequently had to wait an hour or so past my apointment. I also had to wait weeks for X rays.

As I said I'd never come to use it much but people I'd known had mixed experiences. I've got to say probably more good than bad, as I tried convincing my wife when I moved here. However I lived in Hampshire which was supposedly one of the areas with better health care than others.

I was perhaps unfair saying seriously flawed, my wifes propaganda must be taking effect.

There are schemes (Mecicare, County Hospitals etc), in the US to cover the elderly those on wellfare etc although I'm not sure just how great that coverage is, different people have different views. The not working thing is more of an issue, I've been lucky so far in that my wife has great benefits but if that changed in the future and I was out of work I'd be worried.