Can any Duers give me info on Medical 401 (k)

[louis c]

My health insurance rates are through the roof. I pay $144 a week for me and my wife.

I am 54 and she is 51. My company pays 50%, but still we have skyrocketing insurance costs.

I have heard about a Medical 401(k) with a catastrophic ($5,000 deductible) back-up.

Can one of you direct me to a plan?

[pooja]

1. Check out holitic dr.s #1. I swear you'll feel better with a good one.

#2. If you don't have major afflictions... get Aflac and catestrophic insurance. If you have lots of probs and lots of medicines.. stick with the insurance.

[louis c]

2. We are both relatively healthy

with only minor problems.

I haven't needed a Doctor in two years, and my wife only has high blood pressure.

I'm thinking, if I could put $80 a week into a Medical 401(k), and pay $60 a month in Catastrophic health care with a high deductible, I'd be well ahead of the game.

[madrchsod]

6. you need to go to the doctor

and get a complete check-up as soon as possible before you make any decisions. never think that "only has" is something small...take it from me i wish i would have thought a lot more about my health when i was 50.
aflac is very expensive but if you need it it`s worth every penny if you are off of work for an extended period of time. believe me i wish i had it when i had my heart attack and was off work for 6 months. short term disability money does`t pay the bills or a trip to mayo clinic and hospital

[pooja]

7. Excuse my spelling earlier. Like I say try to find an MD that is

willing to use holistic medicines as well as traditional. And get a catastrophic policy and an Aflac. The Aflac or AGI pays you if you get cancer or have an accident. The catastrophic covers the emergencies. If only consumers had the price list of hospitals and dr.s and meds then they could haggle it and Walmart the whole institution. Seriously, Ever look at a billing statement. the Dr. visit paid by you is $300.00. The Dr. visit pd by insurance co. is 70.00 and you pick up a co-pay of 15-45.00 yourself. If you were fairly healthy and only required one physical a year, wouldn't you rather just pay the 100.00 Dr. visit than pay out $5600.00 every year?

And if you have a Dr. with a holistic practise they aren't taking hand-outs like candy from the drug co. They will point you on to dietary and supplements that could help you.

Listen, I was never so fruity-tuity. I grew up in hardy small town. We had to be life threateningly ill to ever even see a Dr. I remember the time my cousin banged his knee all the way to the bone. Never went to the Dr. (guess what no gangrene or meds or whatever). Anyway, I always had the philosophy that if it wasn't broke, don't fix it. It wasn't until my husband (who was 26 at the time)had high cholesterol.. He couldn't take lipitor or anything with statens... so good ole' Doc puts him on Folic Acid and Flax seed. 2yrs later perfect cholesterol. Lost weight. Feels great. Doesn't eat a special diet. So with a Dr. who is willing to work with the case and know all aspects of healing, will be more beneficial to all people.

[scarletwoman]

9. "...wouldn't you rather just pay the 100.00 Dr. visit than pay out $5600.00 every year?"

Exactly! I've been to a doctor just 3 times in the past 5 years, yet my health insurance costs over $215 a month out of my paychecks. And when I DO see a doctor it costs me an extra $40 in co-pay. Gawd forbid I actually need hospitalization -- that would cost me at minimum $1000 out of pocket before any insurance coverage kicks in -- not including all the various other co-pays for drugs and lab tests and specialists, etc. What the hell am I paying all those payroll deductions for?

sw

[pooja]

10. What would happen if every American opted out of insurance..

Hmmm insurance companies would go broke. Dr.s would have to lower prices for patients. If we all just had catestrophic coverage (the big stuff that would indebt us--or heaven forbid a national insurance coverage), then we would literally colapse the healthcare industry.

We are insuring our bodies to get sick instead of living healthy to be free.

[scarletwoman]

11. No disagreement from me! (nt)

[scarletwoman]

3. I haven't heard of "Medical 401K", do you mean a Health Savings Account? (HSA)

I researched these (HSAs) awhile back. They are non-taxed savings accounts designed for people who hold high-deductable "catastrophic" health insurance plans.

If this is what you're thinking about, I suggest you just google "health savings accounts" and go to the "u.s.gov." page that shows up (sorry, I didn't bookmark my search results). When I did my research, I soon realized that I wouldn't qualify, so I didn't pursue it. However, I suggest you look into it for yourself.

My understanding is that you have to be enrolled in a particular kind of health insurance, and then you also have to find a bank or credit union that offers an HSA set-up. The way it works is that you allowed to make contributions to the account out of your pre-taxed income, and the interest on your HSA is non-taxable as long as you use it for strictly medical coverage.

Hope this helps.

sw

[Dawgs]

4. The HSA program is a Bush backed idea similar to his plan to "save"...

Social Security.

Just my two cents.

[scarletwoman]

5. I understand that. I was just trying to provide a possible answer to someone's question.

In any case, the Social Security analogy doesn't apply to HSAs. Bottom line, I want universal, single-payer health insurance like every other Western industrial nation provides. We don't have that, we are stuck with a stupid private system that charges exorbitant premiums, and then adds insult to injury with high deductibles and high co-pays and restrictions on coverage.

That being the case, there is a certain attraction to putting your own tax-free money away for covering health care costs, rather than letting private insurance companies constantly bleed you by sucking high premiums out of your paycheck and then demanding high co-pays and deductibles on top of that.

The preferable solution would be government administrated universal coverage -- like social security. But that's not what we have. Until we do, HSAs *may* be a worthwhile stop-gap alternative for some people. Just because bush* has promoted them doesn't mean they might not work out to be economically more viable for some people than the current private health insurance rip-off system that we're being subjected to.

Personally, I really resent what I'm currently stuck with -- high premiums taken out of my paycheck every 2 weeks, and then high co-pays and deductibles on top of it. Not only does the health insurance company get plenty of my money automatically, should I actually need to USE it, I end up having to pay a bunch of extra money on top of what they've already taken. It really pisses me off.

As I posted above, it turned out that my deductible wasn't HIGH enough to qualify for an HSA. But if I had qualified, I would have much preferred to set aside my own money in a tax-free account rather than allowing a private health insurance company to just take my money paycheck after paycheck for a "benefit" I rarely use. Because if I DO have the misfortune of needing to use it, they just want even MORE money from me.

sw

[Vinca]

8. You need to check with an insurance agent in your state.

Each state has different rules and regulations. To me, a few years older and in New Hampshire, $144 a week sounds like a deal for insurance.