How much is your insurance? [POLL]

[Prophet 451]

Poll question: How much is your insurance? [POLL]

I'm curious. I live in Britain, where all my medical needs are covered by the NHS. The NHS budget is around two thousand dollars per person per year so I'm curious how much you guys pay for your annual health insurance.

EDIT: If you share the cost with your employer, just enter the amount you personally pay.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. $9600 for my husband and me.

[notadmblnd]

2. My insurance is provided by my husbands union's suvivor benefits.

I do not pay anything for health insurance itself. I do have to pay for office visits as it does not cover those. I've been about four time this year so I've spent 400.00 there. My son has been exceptionally healthy so I've spent no dollars there. I do have a Co-pay for medicines and I've spent around 300.00 for the year. Hospitalizations and emergencies are covered 100%. I will have these benefits till age 65 when medicare kicks in or if I get married again, they will cease.

[MercutioATC]

3. My share or the total premium?

Many employers subsidize premiums...

[Prophet 451]

5. Sorry, your share

I'll edit to make that clear. Thanks.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Nothing

My employer pays it.

[MercutioATC]

7. About $4100.

The full unsubsidized premium is about $13,800.

...and that doesn't include copays.

[Bonhomme Richard]

39. Same here. n/t

[uppityperson]

6. Don't have ins, when get in Feb, including dental, vision, $4000-5000/yr range

for 2 of us.

[rainbow4321]

8. $2832/yr to cover me and my daughter

I pay about $118/paycheck. Of course, they are raising our premiums by 10% so it will go up some starting next month.
It's a pretty fair system as far as premiums are concerned. I work for a county hospital, the premium one pays is done on a sliding scale. The less you make, the lower the premium.
Stupid thing is, the "merit raises" this fiscal year averaged 2% for each employee. Of course, that "extra" 2% is gonna end up going towards the increase in premiums!

I went to a Primacare last week and my co pay was $25. The co pay covers everything done at visits including labs/xrays/injections, etc... If I get admitted into the hospital system I work for, the hospital bill would be total of $100. ER visits = $100.

[Tumbulu]

9. $2200 but it is a $5000 deductible and then only pays 80% of approved

the last time I went to the doctor for a general physical, three years ago I had a blood test. The total was something around $750 which I was prepared to pay and did pay. But the startling thing was that only $69 of that entire bill went towards my $5000 deductible. Can you believe that? This doctor was on the approved list of doctors for this insurance.

So, I don't think that I have insurance at all for my $2200 per year.

[dkf]

17. 750 for a blood test? Is that typical?

Damn

[Tumbulu]

50. No, that was the whole physical

including a blood test.

[Digit]

10. Can't afford insurance

And won't be able to even with the subsidy.

[sandnsea]

11. This year, $720 & $500 deductible, I have a subsidy n/t

[Lisa0825]

12. My employer pays my premium, so I pay zero in that respect...

but I have a $500 deductible and probably pay about $1000 a year for copays for visits and prescriptions.

[liberal_at_heart]

13. Our premium is around $200 a month, It's the deductibles and denied claims that hurt the most

We have a $2500 personal deductible and a $5500 family deductible. I remember one year we had a $1100 total out of pocket deductible. That was suppose to be the most we would have to pay in one year. We paid the deductible, then my husband had a $21,000 surgery, and the insurance comapany paid $14,000 of the bill. We were stuck with the rest of the bill because they claimed that $14000 was what they considered reasonable and customary charges.

[xchrom]

14. My employer takes out $150 per pay check

I pay $105 per month for meds -- so ovver 2
grand immediatly. Not including what my emplyoer
kicks in.

I pay both for a portion of seeing my dr
and a portion of walking onto the premises.
I go to a clinic associated w/ the hospital
which accounts for the additional charge -- but
I get the best dr.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

15. Union Sheet Metal worker in the S.F. bay area

Almost $12.00 per hour. You do the math.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

16. Oh yeah, that's before co -pay.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

21. 2,0000hurs X 12.00 per hour , if I work all year

About the price of a new Ferrari. Such a deal! Cadilac plan indeed.

[JCMach1]

18. About $1500 a year for a family of four

Of course, it is not the U.S.

[snot]

19. [self-delete]

[paulsby]

20. Zero

it's a really good plan. heck, i'd call it a cadillac plan. thank god for our union.

i am for universal healthcare, but i'm pragmatic and realize i'd never get as good a plan under the govt.

my employer pays about 10k a year for it. i pay nothing

[barbtries]

22. about $2400 for insurance

because my employer pays 90%. that doesn't count co-pays which have averaged about $500 or so for each of the last two years.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

23. Share your costs with your employer?

When did my employer start sharing costs? My employer sells my labor at a price that is higher than it costs him. This is how he makes a profit. If I don't produce more than I make, I get terminated. My employer does not pay for anything! I either earn what I am being paid, plus any extras, plus a profit for my employer or I am out on the street, end of subject!

This idea that my employer, through his benificience, does anything at all for me is horseshit!

Knock off the propaganda.

[Prophet 451]

24. Dude, calm down. You know what I meant n/t

[crazyjoe]

35. wow, you should quit then and protest........

[old mark]

25. About $3000 a year just for me - my wife is on SS Disability, has other private

insurance to fill in the gaps.
My insurance is backed and subsidized by the state (PA), will eventually cost me nothing (after another 8 months or so.)

Private insurance: I had Blue Cross for 1 month, cost $800 just for me, was not as good as what I have now. Would have been $9600 a year.

mark

[tammywammy]

26. About $20/week, so $1040/year

Maybe closer to $23-25 when you add in the vision, dental, term-life, diability that I also have above just health insurance. It's a pretty good plan, covers all preventative medical visits 100%.

[davidpdx]

27. I don't live in the US and have Korean Health Insurance

So I voted for the last option. Damn that was fun!

[sandnsea]

44. How does that work? n/t

[davidpdx]

62. I think it would be like Universal Health Care

It is modeled after the Japanese system. Everyone has insurance through a quasi public company and the premium is split 50/50 with your employer, if you are employed, if not you are provided it for free. You can go to any doctor or clinic without the need for approval.

[hfojvt]

28. there are two questions

1. How much I pay
2. How much it costs.

My insurance costs $639.19 per month for medical and $31 per month for dental. Because I work part-time, I pay half of that. If I worked full-time, I would get the same coverage for $30.15 per month. If I was insuring a child or a spouse or a family it would be $1072.19 a month for one more person and $1193.26 for two or more people.

[haele]

29. $5200 a year premium for family of 3 -

Not counting actual medical Car under the insurance; the co-pays, deductables, and other costs.
This year, Medical care was over $16K our of our pocket, and the insurance company actually paid around $120K after they negotiated almost $200K down; Laz had two surgeries and a couple lab/diagnostic procedures and the kidlet ended up in the ER a couple times due to mainly hypocondria, but she did recieve a concussion from Jujitsu practice and suffered from a couple nasty virii she picked up at school. Normally, we pay around $8K and Insurance pays out around $26K, mainly for the meds.
My employer kicks in around $14K a year.
We have a $5K FSA that helps out; pulls the money out pre-tax and refunds it as we use it.

Medical care that wasn't covered by insurance ended up costing around $500.

The insurance premium alone is around 11% of our annual income. Toss in the other costs, and we usually pay around 17%. This year, we got hit for 33% - and we'll be paying that off for a loooong time.

Haele

[dipsydoodle]

30. What's the origin of the budget figure of US$2000 you used ?

Just curious.

BTW - I'm am UK.

[Prophet 451]

67. working it out

Essentially, I took the budget figure for the NHS (about £64 billon, according to the Express), divided it by our population (a touch over 60 million) and then just doubled the resulting figure to get an aproximate US comparison.

[dipsydoodle]

76. I can see that's the budgeted expenditure figure

but of course what we pay in per capita is higher than that. The difference of course is accounted for by aggregate expenditure in Iraq and Afghanistan. :sarcasm:

[DRoseDARs]

31. I pay for my own insurance*, not through employer: $3336/yr.

I'm the only one on my policy with Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. I should be getting my yearly premium increase notice in the next few weeks and it will likely push above $300/month (currently $278/mnth, was $245/mnth last year); goes up in April, my birth month.

*Well, I've been paying for my own insurance for several years now, but I just had to ask my stepdad for help covering the month of January.

[DemReadingDU]

34. for spouse and me: $422 per month

going up 2/1/10 to $555 per month, and this is with $6000 deductible, no prescription coverage, basically catastrophic plan. If we go to $10,000 deductible, the price drops to about $380 per month. Thankfully we are healthy, just a couple more years to wait for Medicare.

edit - we're retired in our early 60's and have the Lumenos Plan with Anthem.

[Bitwit1234]

32. Medicare and BC/BS

Medicare 97 a month and I pay about 1000 dollars a year for BC/BS. 4-5 dollars per prescription. Checkups and no complication teeth removal - nothing. BC/BS picks up the Medicare deductible, no co pays for doctors.

[Epiphany4z]

33. we pay around

5000 and I am not sure what my husbands employer pays as his part...

[Crabby Appleton]

36. In the UK don't you pay 11% of your income for National Insurance,

depending on employment class - 12% if you make a high wage - and the employer pays a little higher percentage.

[Prophet 451]

68. That's complicated

In theory, you're right (although NI is supposed to cover the NHS, unemployment and retirement benefits) but in practice, it's quite a complicated system. My mother's an accountant and actually understands the system but the best I can do is direct you to wiki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Insurance ).

[OnionPatch]

37. I know I am lucky.....I don't know how much it costs. My employer pays it all.

And dependents too.

[pdxmom]

38. We pay close to $7,000/year, and that is our portion of what is provided

through my husband's employer. Just for 3 of us. We pay virtually nothing out of pocket, and our deductible is only $250. But we have a lot of medical needs, as my husband is an amputee. Our insurance paid 100% for his new $50,000 prosthesis.

If he wants to retire before Medicare kicks in and carry the same coverage, it will cost us $3,000/month. And of course, we can't get any other insurance, due to the pre-existing.

[blondeatlast]

40. Have insurance through my ex's employer and we pay about $4000 a year through dedux and co-pays. nt

[Vinca]

41. Our last quote, which we couldn't afford, was about $20,000 a year

with a $5,000 a head deductible. Can you adopt us?

[Prophet 451]

69. I'm tempted to start renting out my basement

I've had quite a few Americans say the same thing.

[dysfunctional press]

42. i have medicare- but because i'm disabled, nobody will sell me a supplemental policy...

for the 20% medicare doesn't cover. and they don't have to until i turn 65 in another 16 years. but there's no limit on what they can charge me for the privilege.

[change_notfinetuning]

43. When I worked at a large defense contractor, I paid zero and had a zero

deductible for everything - doctors, medicine,, hospitals, everything - and taxpayers paid for it all. That was a couple of decades ago, so I imagine that's changed quite a bit. I think the pay and benefits were like hush money, so you'd keep quiet about everything you saw, for fear of losing it. When I was a federal employee, I paid about one third for a far inferior, but acceptable plan. But when I became self employed, insurance wasn't in the budget for many years. When it finally was, I of course paid 100%. The increases got bigger and bigger each year, and when it finally hit 33% annual increase, I had to give it up. My insurance plan became telling the kids, "Don't do that (like skateboard, for example). We don't have insurance." And praying a lot.

[StarfarerBill]

45. Nada. Mostly unemployed and can't afford it.

[pipi_k]

46. About $1000 per year for Medicare (on my own), and I'm also covered

by Mr Pip's military insurance, which he gets for no cost.

[unblock]

47. well the thing about ignoring the employer's share is that ...

... my employer's share is effectively a tax on employing me; that is, my employer would pay me a higher salary if they didn't have to pay their share of my health care.

[graywarrior]

48. $0

I live in MA

[Bluenorthwest]

49. Two quibbles, in case you don't know

People pay premiums for Medicare so they should check the first box if your question is about cost, ot the source of the Insurance. The separate box is redundant, money wise.
The other thing is our 'insurance' cost does not cover actual treatment that we do not pay for in addition to the premiums, most of the time. So the cost of the insurance here is nowhere near the total we would spend on 'health care' if using it. For example, even Medicare has 20% co-payments.
The comparison seems incomplete.

[Prophet 451]

70. Crap

My mistake, I thought Medicare was funded through lifetime contributions.

Honestly, this stuff is more complicated than learning Koine Greek was. As best I can tell, it's virtually a lottery.

[HelenWheels]

51. Too much

$1000/year for Medicare plus $4000 plus for a supplement. I get no dental or vision.

[DesertRat]

52. My employer pays mine. n/t

[TwilightGardener]

53. Zero--mine is military health care. Of course, I "pay" by living the military-spouse life...

complete with being a single mom for long stretches and moving every few years.

[MrsCorleone]

54. $8200 / year for two adults.

In '06 my premium rose 7.2% from '05.

2007: 7.2% increase

2008: 7.5% increase

2009: 17.9% increase.

Starting Jan 01, 2010: 13% increase.

Insurer is Kaiser, a tax exempt non-profit provider.

[jannyk]

55. $6000 premium for the two of us, then we have to pay $5,000 each

per year before insurance pays out a penny, and then they only pay 80% of the rest. No vision coverage, No dental coverage. Needless to say, it has been years since we've been to a doctor. We retired early (in our 50's) and have no employer contributions.

I grew up in England, my catastrophic medical plan, for long term illness, would involve going 'home'. My husband still holds an old Taiwan passport and he would do the same, as they too have a great NHS system.

[liberal_at_heart]

56. why does this thread have a flame next to it?

Is someone afraid of information? Is someone afraid of comparing our system to other systems around the world?

[Crabby Appleton]

57. No, it just means that this thread has more than 50 responses.

[LWolf]

58. How much for the premium, or how much for actual care?

I pay for insurance, and then I pay deductibles and copays for what my insurance doesn't cover.

Do you want the total health costs, insurance + care, or just insurance?

[Esurientes]

59. I only pay $25.20 a year!

I work for a public school district -- this is just for me; if I'd had my children on it when they were eligible, it would have been around $7200 per year.

I'm not sure if this insurance is good or not, since I've only used it once or twice in the 11 years I've been with this school system. (I'm a big fan of natural remedies.)

Going to be verrrry interesting to see how things change for me in the next 4 or 5 years.

[JanMichael]

60. $0 for me (emp. pays 100%). Add in the spouse who is a college student about $60/m.

My policy is about 70% decent (they can't control generic drug prices for shit and specialist payment visits are shooting up) hers is about 30% decent (don't ask...they just really suck).

HOWEVER! We have insurance between the two of us that's about 50% as good as SP might be in France.

And this is shameful when what we have as the so-called lucky is still not provided at all to some 45 million Americans....

[FLDCVADem]

61. Family premiums are $5300/year

That's what we pay - hubby's company pays another $6200/year

[mrs_p]

63. we personally pay over $15K for my husband's plan

he has a pre-existing condition and may eventually require a transplant. i'm certain they will drop us at that point...

[RobbinsdaleDem]

64. $6,300 for my husband and me.

Adding in co-pays and deductibles, we paid around $10,000 this year.

[quiller4]

65. Annual premium for 2010 $8400 for self and spouse. n/t

[quaker bill]

66. about 12,000 a year for my family

but my employer pays 80 percent.

[coyote]

71. I have German public insurance a nd pay 3500€ and my employer

pays the other half. Covers the entire family. Zero deductible

[Petrushka]

72. Although I'm on Medicare, I didn't vote in this poll because it would seem like Medicare is "free".

Although there will be no COLA for senior citizens in 2010, the Medicare Part B premium
deducted from my monthly Social Security check will be raised to $110.50 in 2010; and,
in addition, I'll be paying $99.00 per month to an HMO (which includes Medicare Part D
prescription coverage in its premium) . . . meaning that I'll be paying $2,514 for annual
health insurance . . . PLUS (of course) co-pays for any prescription meds, plus co-pays
to any doctors, plus co-pays for any tests, plus co-pays for any/every etc., etc., etc.

:nopity:

[Prophet 451]

75. Cock-up on my part

I was under the impression that Medicare was paid for through lifetime taxes. Unfortunately, too late to change the poll but my apologies.

[MerryBlooms]

73. $6728 for just me.

$500 ded
80%/20%
$5-$10 on scrips
no vision/no dental

This is thru my state's plan and BCBS. My monthly premium has gone up 44% in less than two years that I've had this plan. ugh

[gleaner]

74. For my husband ...

option three. We are both retired, he pays for his share OPM pays the rest. This continues as long as we do not switch carriers. If we ever did we would be on for all of it. This is the FEHB plan Obama is always touting. It it not that great. We pay a lot in co=payments and deductibles.

I have Medicare. Since I could not vote twice, it is $96 and change per month for a total of roughly $1152 per month netted out of my Social Security, plus deductibles. I get prescriptions through my husbands plan which acts as a secondary insurer for me as his dependent.

That is lots and lots of money, for some pretty mediocre coverage. That is why I would like to see medicare for everyone based on ability to pay with the rich and large corporations paying a surcharge to cover it. It would be cheaper in the long run and would work better for everyone. The greedy who are so terrified of government run programs ought to have to do without insurance as they are dooming a lot of others to do with this worthless plan that is bouncing around and then see how they feel about it.