How much have your health costs risen?

[Randall]

MSNBC said ours have risen 129% since 1999. Mine have more than doubled.

 

Discuss?

[TimC]

MSNBC said ours have risen 129% since 1999. Mine have more than doubled.

 

Discuss?

 

I believe it was 2 years ago that ours got jacked up just under 40% in a year. (Aetna)

 

ETA: And the services were cut as well.

Edited November 10, 2008 by TimC

[SuperCharger]

Can't say that I've noticed.

[DMD]

Try paying for it 100% by yourself and trying to get any decent health insurance company to even take you as an individual in the first place.

[Egret]

When I started my job in 2000, my co-pays were $2. They are now $5. I didn't have to put any money out of pocket towards insurance in 2000. Now it's ~$70 a month. It was higher last year than this year. My employer's costs have gone up much higher, which is a big reason why we've either received no raises or a small increase. Some teachers are making less now than they were a few years ago.

[Hat Trick]

Insurance........I despise the word

[westvirginia]

When I started my job in 2000, my co-pays were $2. They are now $5. I didn't have to put any money out of pocket towards insurance in 2000. Now it's ~$70 a month. It was higher last year than this year. My employer's costs have gone up much higher, which is a big reason why we've either received no raises or a small increase. Some teachers are making less now than they were a few years ago.

 

 

Um, Egret, you aren't going to get much sympathy from those of us in the private sector. I don't think I've EVER had a copy less than $10 and it's been more like $25 ($35 for specialists) for the last five years or so. And I'd LOVE to just pay $70/mo. And you get summers off...

[DMD]

We don't have copays like that. We have to pay whatever the insurance does not cover. My wife's migraine medicine costs us roughly $300 a month by itself. You who work for employers have downsides but health insurance is not one of them if you get into a group plan and don't pay easily $1000 a month on insurance and what it does not cover as I do.

[TimC]

Try paying for it 100% by yourself and trying to get any decent health insurance company to even take you as an individual in the first place.

 

I have never understood the reasoning behind company insurance. Think about it. The ONLY thing my co-workers and I have in common for this is we work together. Someone explain to me what this has to do with our health?

[DemonKnight]

330/month for me and my 2 kids. Zero co-pay and I can see whoever I want. All prescriptions are covered 100% as well. Aetna Health Choice plan. I love it.

[The Holy Roller]

Zip. Nada. Zilch.

 

It feels great not paying for something I don't want.

 

In fact, my school district pays into an annuity every month for those employees that don't take the district's health plan. I currently have over 40K for not buying health insurance.

 

(Under the district's present plan the employee is responsible for the first $2000 and then 20% after that).

[wiegie]

I have never understood the reasoning behind company insurance. Think about it. The ONLY thing my co-workers and I have in common for this is we work together. Someone explain to me what this has to do with our health?

It helps solve problems caused by adverse selection.

 

From wikipedia:

Insurance companies use the term "adverse selection" to describe the tendency for only those who will benefit from insurance to buy it. Specifically when talking about health insurance, unhealthy people are more likely to purchase health insurance because they anticipate large medical bills. On the other side, people who consider themselves to be reasonably healthy may decide that medical insurance is an unnecessary expense; if they see the doctor once a year and it costs $250, that's much better than making monthly insurance payments of $40. (example figures).

 

The fundamental concept of insurance is that it balances costs across a large, random sample of individuals (see risk pool). For instance, an insurance company has a pool of 1000 randomly selected subscribers, each paying $100 per month. One person becomes very ill while the others stay healthy, allowing the insurance company to use the money paid by the healthy people to pay for the treatment costs of the sick person. However, when the pool is self-selecting rather than random, as is the case with individuals seeking to purchase health insurance directly, adverse selection is a greater concern. A disproportionate share of health care spending is attributable to individuals with high health care costs. In the US the 1% of the population with the highest spending accounted for 27% of aggregate health care spending in 1996. The highest-spending 5% of the population accounted for more than half of all spending. These patterns were stable through the 1970s and 1980s, and some data suggest that they may have been typical of the mid-to-early 20th century as well. A few individuals have extremely high medical expenses, in extreme cases totaling a half million dollars or more. Adverse selection could leave an insurance company with primarily sick subscribers and no way to balance out the cost of their medical expenses with a large number of healthy subscribers.

[CaP'N GRuNGe]

We don't have copays like that. We have to pay whatever the insurance does not cover. My wife's migraine medicine costs us roughly $300 a month by itself. You who work for employers have downsides but health insurance is not one of them if you get into a group plan and don't pay easily $1000 a month on insurance and what it does not cover as I do.

 

Hey Dale, I hear John Redcorn gives a good massage treatment for that.

Edited November 10, 2008 by CaP'N GRuNGe

[CaP'N GRuNGe]

I'm pretty happy with ours. Pay a little over $3K a year for Medical/Pharmacy/Dental for the family.

[DemonKnight]

The fundamental concept of insurance is that it balances costs across a large, random sample of individuals (see risk pool). For instance, an insurance company has a pool of 1000 randomly selected subscribers, each paying $100 per month. One person becomes very ill while the others stay healthy, allowing the insurance company to use the money paid by the healthy people to pay for the treatment costs of the sick person. However, when the pool is self-selecting rather than random, as is the case with individuals seeking to purchase health insurance directly, adverse selection is a greater concern. A disproportionate share of health care spending is attributable to individuals with high health care costs. In the US the 1% of the population with the highest spending accounted for 27% of aggregate health care spending in 1996. The highest-spending 5% of the population accounted for more than half of all spending. These patterns were stable through the 1970s and 1980s, and some data suggest that they may have been typical of the mid-to-early 20th century as well. A few individuals have extremely high medical expenses, in extreme cases totaling a half million dollars or more. Adverse selection could leave an insurance company with primarily sick subscribers and no way to balance out the cost of their medical expenses with a large number of healthy subscribers.

 

Have to agree here, I spend an hour in the gym every day. Why should I have to pay a larger proportinal share than those unhealthy bastards that are too lazy to do the same!!!11! What say you Joe da Plumba? You got my back, right?

 

Amazing how this info correlates to the whold socialism v. capitalism debate.

[TimC]

It helps solve problems caused by adverse selection.

 

From wikipedia:

 

I'm sorry I'm not on crack right now to be able to understand and agree with that line of reasoning.

[dmarc117]

im all for getting discounts based on your physical condition. have a yearly fitness test administered and your test score can lower your payments.

[Riffraff]

im all for getting discounts based on your physical condition. have a yearly fitness test administered and your test score can lower your payments.

Of course, rates would go up to cover the cost of software development to track these tests, salary for new employees to administer these tests, cost of equipment and facilities to administer the tests, and a congressional sub-committee to govern the tests. Of course these facilities and personnel would have to be readily accessible, meaning thousands upon thousands of these places.

 

Count me out.

Edited November 10, 2008 by Riffraff

[dmarc117]

Of course, rates would go up to cover the cost of software development to track these tests, salary for new employees to administer these tests, cost of equipment and facilities to administer the tests, and a congressional sub-committee to govern the tests. Of course these facilities and personnel would have to be readily accessible, meaning thousands upon thousands of these places.

 

Count me out.

 

 

your dr. cant forward this info?

[Riffraff]

your dr. cant forward this info?

Doctors aren't going to take the time to watch you do a test, they have patients to see. Someone else has to test you and provide results.

Adding a layer of bureaucracy isn't free, it'll cost millions to implement.

 

Imagine just being the complaint divisions being manned for everyone who thought they should score better than they did.

 

Heck, the research conducted to provide an outline of what is considered healthy at certain age brackets would cost a fortune. Whether that is driven by a congressional sub-committee or by individual insurance companies, it doesn't really matter.

 

Regulating national physical fitness standards isn't free.

[boat_hacked]

Wife and I both pay about $110 a month (work same company each get 25% discount on monthly co-pay). After primary/secondary pay, we have no out-of-pocket expense except monthly premium.

[Jimmy Neutron]

$82.65 every two weeks - going up to $102 something in 2009, but that's upgrading coverage to zero out of pocket for tests, procedures, etc. I've been told I've got it better than most, but several posts here have me questioning that.

 

I do know that my peers in MA pay over $300 every two weeks for similar coverage.

[AtomicCEO]

I pay squat for myself out of my paycheck. I selected the free Kaiser Plan. But I could have upgraded if I gave a crap. I didn't.

 

They covered my whole appendix removal with nothing but a possible $10 co-pay.

 

Someone may tell you Kaiser Permanente is bad because it's impersonal or whatever... but I'm one of those guys who only goes to the doc when I need to and it works fine for me.

[Egret]

Um, Egret, you aren't going to get much sympathy from those of us in the private sector. I don't think I've EVER had a copy less than $10 and it's been more like $25 ($35 for specialists) for the last five years or so. And I'd LOVE to just pay $70/mo. And you get summers off...

Not looking for sympathy at all. I wish more people had health care like me. It is one of the nice perks from teaching.

[WaterMan]

For us millions of Americans without it, free.