Holy Bat Guano. My health insurance premium went up by 15.6%

[hfojvt]

This in a year in which there was only 3.89% inflation - supposedly.

I suppose that is not news because it happens all the time. Tomorrow I will visit HR and see if I can look at the trend for the last 5 years.

My employer used to pay for it, then they paid for most of it, if you got the buy-up for $14.66 a month, which seemed worth it. Now that I went to part-time, they only pay for half of it. Premium went from $384.46 to 444.34.

It is very good insurance, IMO. My $13,000 hospital bill only cost me $400 and my $5000 knee surgery was entirely covered - except for a couple $20 co-pays.

On another note, I see that my employer pays $427.64 a month for a single employee but $682.43 for a couple and $775.16 for a family. So, in a sense, if a co-worker has a spouse, they get paid $3,057.48 a year more than me and if they have a family they get $4,170.24 more. Considering that it is tax free too, that works out to about $2.5 an hour more or 21% at my wage-rate.

That does not seem fair, and any sort of universal coverage is likely to have me paying for other people's kids too. Maybe not though. As a part-timer, my taxes might not even be enough to pay for my own coverage. Also, I work for a government, so right now all taxpayers are paying for my coverage, but they get my time and effort out of the deal too.

[flordehinojos]

1. your insurance seems to have a scale ... many insurances do not.

scale: "I see that my employer pays $427.64 a month for a single employee but $682.43 for a couple and $775.16 for a family. "

There are insurances which might deduct $350. from an employee's check for "family coverage" whether the employee has 1 dependent or 10.

For those who have $350. deducted from their check for what amounts to coverage for 1 dependent and then see that those who have 10 dependents also have $350. deducted from of their checks, the mathematics of it all does not seem very fair.

...not to mention of course, there are those who have no coverage at all.

[hfojvt]

2. seems like it does not have a scale

for the top coverage, a single person pays $16.70 and couple pays $251.62 and a family pays $282.44. The employer pays the rest of the premium which I mentioned in the OP. The coverage is the same for any size of family from 3 to whatever. The larger family gets a better deal, but that is coming from the insurance company rather than the employer.

My OP was meant not so much about my own 'troubles' which should get a :nopity: but about rising health care and insurance costs. For employees who pay a larger percentage of their premiums that's a bigger bite. For employers and self-employed it's an even bigger bite. Their labor costs go way up, but it doesn't translate into more benefits for the workers.

I was hoping other DUers would share their health insurance stories.

[flordehinojos]

7. hi ... i didn't take your post as a rant on your troubles...the way i read the piece

was that, those who had less dependents paid somewhat less into the insurance fund, while those who had a greater number of dependents paid more...that sounded fair and equitable vs. the pay the same into the insurance fund regardless of the # of dependents who will be making use of it...that is more tilted because those who have less dependents pay more for the same coverage, services and benefits as those who have a greater number of dependents. anyhow, that was how i read the piece.

these days we pay more for our insurance, receive less coverage, and who knows what tomorrow will bring.

i like the idea of UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE and I don't buy into the line that i would be paying for everyone else's coverage under UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE because everyone else will be contributing to the fund... plus, i think with UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE insurances won't be able to deny coverage--as they have to many people that i know--and their denials have come after their having received procedures ordered by doctors in their said insurances' health insurance plans. i don't think insurances could have done that under the clinton administration--but quite frankly, these days ... i just don't know what to think anymore.

[Uben]

3. Consider this

When I retired, the wife and I had to get a private policy for healthcare. It wasn't that great, mostly a catastrophic policy, for about $450 mo. Well, the wife got breast cancer, had a double mastectomy, and has been cancer free for almost four years. The insurance saved us tens of thousands of dollars, but now is costing $1000/mo due to increases every year. We have to keep the policy we have because no one else will take us due to the cancer thing.

It can always be worse!

[hfojvt]

4. I did not mean to sound like I was complaining for myself.

I pay very little, or would, if I had stayed full time. That cost went from 14.66 a month to 16.7 a month. Almost a 14% increase, but big whoop, that 14% is only about $20 a year. Most of the increased costs are born by my employer (and hence the taxpayers) except for the extra $2400 a year I am happy to pay for the privilege of working only half-time.

My thread was meant to be about rising health care/insurance costs in this country starting with my own example. I just neglected to add the line asking DUers to tell their own stories. Kinda thought that was obvious in a discussion forum.

I am glad you posted your story, although it is not a happy one. How much have your costs increased in the last three years? Has it more than doubled in just six years?? That's crazy. $12,000 a year would be more than my entire annual income now.

[Vinca]

5. "any sort of universal coverage is likely to have me paying for other people's kids too"

Why is that so bad? If the cost is shared amongst every member of the population, everyone has health care and the overall cost is lower.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. I've been dealing with this crap for years.

Try being self employed. The rate increases exceed the official (and completely bullshit) inflation rate by huge amounts every year.

Universal Health Care is the only reasonable answer.

[AnnInLa]

8. you should see the increase in my house insurance!

I live in an area devastated by Hurricane Rita....our home insurance went up alarmingly.

[hfojvt]

9. Yikes. Good point

My home owners insurance went up by 14.6% in 2005 and I did not even notice. This year, though, I dropped my homeowners coverage and only have renter's insurance. Not happy about that, but it seems better than the alternative. I think I am already paying 2 or 3 times more for property insurance than I was paying in Iowa or Wisconsin. That may be because we have a Republican Insurance Commissioner who was just re-elected by 70% of the vote. Or it may just be because prices have doubled or tripled in the last ten years.

[newportdadde]

10. Mine is up 20% this year. From 2000 to 2007 - up 350%.