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hueyville wrote:Its not tbe company as much as the plan you opt to pay for.

How true !

Currently for my wife and I we pay 2,100 per month for our plan. I have pay first 1,000 out of pocket then they pay 70% till I reach my maximum out of pocket of 2,500. I had been in my plan for about 5 years when I met my wife. Dated 18 months and then we sealed the deal. The first thing I did was add her to the health plan the change the will and all that other paperwork. I messed up and sent her to the insurance office to handle her insurance without me. I did tell our agent that he had to do her a BC/BS PPO but within that framework let her make some of the decisions. I did not fully understand how much of a miser she is at that time. You give her 10 bucks to buy groceries, she uses coupons, picks up the sales paper next to the buggy corral and comes home with 20 bucks worth of groceries and five bucks change. She has gone to the mall by herself twice in 20 years and only bought the one item she left the house to get and other than the one store for said item zero wandering and shopping.

Thus when our agent started quoting her the prices for a good PPO plan she nutted up and managed to find a relatively "cheap" PPO plan for a female with two pre-existing conditions. By getting a plan where we pay first 5,000 completely out of pocket then 70%/30% on the next 3,500 she was proud of how much money she saved me. Now we have to pop 8,500 out o pocket for her per year. It took her 20 years to understand why I was unhappy but for 15 of those years she was proud of the money she had saved. We got a letter about a year ago from our insurance company telling us due to nobamacare new rules our insurance plans were classified as "luxury" plans and so much better than the national average the federal government added a luxury tax to our plan. My plan has zero co-pays for office visits, zero co-pays for P.T. and never have any procedure denied. Wife is same except for the 8,500 out of pocket as opposed to 2,500 for me and she has to pay a 35 dollar copay each office visit and for P.T. Her plan also does not have the same prescription program mine does. I have maximum out of pocket for a prescription of 45 bucks. According to medicine I pay 15, 30 or 45 per script. Hers pays 15, 30 or 45 for generics but for meds that do not have a generic available it can get crazy. One med she takes is 2,400 per month retail if a person has no insurance. Her plan pays 700 of that prescription leaving us with a 1,700 per month bill for just that one med. She has one other med with no generic available which retails at 1,100 per month and with her prescription plan our price is 700. Thus two of her meds are 2,400 per month which is more than our 2,100 per month insurance plan. If these scripts were written to me on my plan they would cost 45 dollars each per month. Now she cry's every time she goes to the pharmacy because of her genius decision to save us 200 dollars a month on her insurance plan. It is actually sad to see how bad it eats her up when goes to pharmacy.

I know everyone has budget concerns and all bills have to match ability to pay. What irks me is the number of people that drive a five series BMW, Lexus, etc. Live in a 4 bedroom 4 1/2 bath house with only one or two kids who moved out years ago. Eat at Red Lobster or Longhorns every week and have the 300 channel cable plan and a 60* flat screen t.v., bass boat and other numerous high dollar toys who say they cant afford insurance. One of my clients came in 3+ years ago with a brand new 40,000 dollar bass boat and wanted me to install three top line fish finders. One for each fishing chair and the third at the drivers seat with special features for real time feedback of after depth and obstacles when driving at high speed. A month later he came in with a new Ford King Ranch Diesel 4x4 painted to match his boat. Said when joined the local bass club noticed lots of the guys had matching trucks and boats so he decided he needed a new 60,000 dollar truck. Had some electronics needed added to his new truck. All said and done truck, boat, accessories, installation of bling put him into a 125,000 dollar package to take fishing one to two days a week. I thought little about it as if you can afford your toys, life is short so enjoy it. A few months later he was in my office for a business project and told me he had to keep it to a very tight budget due to being in a financial bind. His wife had a heart attack and hey had no health insurance. Since he owned his home, some rental property along with other paid for assets the hospital and doctor placed liens on everything he had paid for. Thus if he sold anything they got first shot at any proceeds if it was paid for or any profit after the bank was satisfied. He was mad and claimed it was unfair. when I asked him why his health insurance did not pick up the tab he said he did not have health insurance. Said he got some quotes a few years ago and for his wife and two kids a basic high deductible HMO to cover catastrophic events was almost 2,000 per month.

I drive a 1997 work truck with 333,000 miles. Wife and I don't go out to eat or to movies. We freeze or can most of our vegetables out of friends gardens and any meat we eat I go out in the woods and kill myself. I write myself one paycheck a week from work and everything else goes to keeping the business going and all of our health care paid for. I will end up with five sleep studies this year no questions asked. Have had 8 epidurals in neck and lumbar and have three scheduled in my thoracic spine before December 31. BC/BS has sucked up 150,000 in medical bills just for me this year. No complaints from them at all. We do have a few hoops to jump through for the wife because she chose to be cheap when sitting in the insurance agents office. I know not everyone can spring 2,100 per month for insurance but many could up their plan one or two levels if they sacrificed a little some comfort creature comfort. Rant off. What I am really trying to say is make sure you understand your plan before you buy it and get as much as you really can afford.