Where have people been getting low-deductible plans until now?

[Recursion]

This is genuinely surprising to me, that people are appalled at deductibles. I've always had good insurance through my jobs, and the lowest deductible I can remember was $2000, several years ago. That's why HSAs are popular, right? (To put that another way, why on earth would anybody use an HSA if no-deductible insurance was common?)

Have most people had $0 for a deductible until now?

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. Before he died, my husband and I had a no-deductible policy.

It was a PPO through his work. This was pre-2008; I've not been able to be insured since then, so I have no idea what they've gotten to.

[femmocrat]

2. My policy through work is no-deductible.

I will lose it in June though when I retire.

[cynatnite]

3. Deductables have slowly gotten higher...

Years ago we used to have a zero deductible plan and if we set foot in a hospital it was covered 100%.

Now, we have a $1500 deductible and an HSA.

For those who haven't had insurance or perhaps hadn't had any in quite some time, I could understand there would be "sticker shock".

[Recursion]

4. I wasn't in the private sector much until the mid-oughts

I guess I missed the golden age? But even tricare had a deductible in the thousands...

[AndrewRN]

5. It's going up

I have had anywhere from $500 to $4000 for my out-of-pocket deductible recently. The size of your employer make a huge difference in the quality of your policy.

[Travis_0004]

6. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I loved my high deductible plan. My out of pocket medical cost have been under 100 a year for the last 3 years, so I loved my high deductible plan, which unfortunately is being discontinued due to the ACA.

[Lars39]

7. Not zero, but between $250-500.

[Recursion]

9. Huh, OK.

I guess I've looked at insurance as protecting me from going bankrupt, not as a way to pay for everyday health care.

[Lars39]

10. I've done both.

If you can't pay for your portion of medical care within the year it occurs, you could very easily be on the way to bankruptcy if the bills keep piling up year after year.

[LWolf]

8. I had no deductible, and no copays,

until about 2000. My entire premium, 100% of it, was paid for by my employer. Then I had no deductible, and a copay of $8 for prescriptions, until I moved out of state to a new employer in 2005. At that point, I started paying a part of the premium, plus I had a $500 deductible, then a 750, then a 1000, and now a 1500, with a 20% copay. Which, with the yearly pay cuts I've been taking while the deductibles keep going up, is not in the budget for care. I don't have an extra $1500 a year for ANYTHING, let alone the 20% after the $1500 is paid.

A $10,000 deductible, which is what the exchange in my state offered me for the lowest premium, is bankruptcy. I would never actually spend that much unless it was something catastrophic. I don't pay $1500 now. I pay cash for whatever I need, and have yet to meet the deductible. I simply don't get care unless I can't get to work without it. I've used it once 2 years ago for shingles, and once last year for an abscess. The shingles cost me about $750; the abscess about $950. I'm still paying for the abscess. Other than those 2 things, I haven't used the insurance since about 2007.

My plan, before moving, was a blue cross plan. My current plan is a MODA plan.

[Skidmore]

11. I'm inclined to think that most of those who are shocked by deductibles

have been previously uninsured. I, too, have always had deductibles, caps, and premiums. The failure to understand that insurance is a risk pool is at the heart of some of this too. There is not a dollar in-dollar out one to one ratio. Hopefully, most of the time you won't need it, but if you do, you'll be glad its there for you.

[TorchTheWitch]

15. no, we're just older

And worked in a world where 100% of your health insurance was paid by your employer, deductibles were $250-$500 per year, and no co-pays. This was under Reagan and Bush Sr. With Clinton we got the shitty HMO that you were confined to a list of doctors and hospitals you could use where there was no deductible but co-pays for everything. It got much more seriously shitty onward. Since I've not had any health insurance for a dozen years I'm shocked at how grossly expensive and useless it is. Yet I'm also shocked (and disgusted) that the meds I have to take and have been taking since my early 20's were around $22 a month yet since Bush Jr. have shot up to $88 a month though the prescription is the same... every month it continues to go up by incruments though the first big jump was double the price.

No, I'm not the least bit happy to be forced to pay for exorbanent for profit health insurance I can't even spend the premium money for and so couldn't possibly afford to use with the co-pays and ridiculously high deductibles. I'm close to my 50's and have never been able to save until oddly enough until the Bush Jr. years where I finally had a job where I could save enough to get my at least my upper teeth fixed... even WITH medical and dental insurance I still had to pay a fortune out of pocket for that since dental insurance has always been worthless and apparently teeth aren't considered a medical part of your body. And it doesn't even matter to me that PA has no interest in expanding Medicaid so I can't use ACA. Unless some miracle occurs where I get a great paying job where I can afford this shitty mandatory crap for the premiums I couldn't possibly afford to use it, and frankly, I need that money to get the rest of my teeth fixed and try to save for when I get old... far more necessary for me than standing over the toilet flushing down what I can't possibly afford just for premiums for health insurance I can't afford to use.

And it's not like I'm excessively poor (well, being unemployed now, yeah, I am). Even if I was working making what I made in the best years of my life I still couldn't afford this crap.

[madville]

12. Had a nice plan from 2005-2009

It was a Blue Options plan through Florida Farm Bureau, $500 deductible and ER visits were 100% covered. I was late 20's and my son was around 8-12, it was $200 a month.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. I think a lot of people who never had insurance are honestly shocked about

how expensive and sucky private health insurance plans are. Those of us who have had employer based insurance all along were quite aware of the yearly increases in our costs, in copays and deductibles and premiums and frequently now in disparities between billed costs and reimbursed costs, so we are not shocked at all by the approximately equally crzppy plans available through the ACA exchanges.

The problem is employer based insurance and for profit health insurance and health care. We have a crappy expensive system, and the ACA doesn't change that.

[aikoaiko]

14. $300 pp through work.