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I just received a bill from my most recent visit to the dentist, which was your standard once every six months teeth cleaning. The bill came to $143 and some change. I was told that my insurance would cover $43 of it and I was to pay the other $100. Every time I get a bill, from the dentist or doctor, I find myself doing the math and just thinking that health insurance has been such a waste. It seems like for all I have put in, I've gotten so little in return and I'm seriously debating opting out of health insurance in the future and taking what money I would have taken out of my paycheck to pay for it, and placing it in a private account, so at the very least I have the money and it doesn't feel like I'm just flushing it down the toilet.
In doing the math, my company takes out a little over $80 from my paycheck every month. This adds up to around $1000/year that I am putting into the system. Last year, I went to the doctor's once. The visit cost around $200, including the cost of a prescription. Insurance paid $110 of it while I forked over $90. Adding up last year's totals, the two teeth cleanings and the visit to the doctors, which is an average year for me, I paid out of my pocked $290. If I did not have health insurance, it would have cost me $490. However, if you tack on the premiums I have been paying every month, then in reality, I paid $1290 out of my pocket last year, whereas if I did not have health insurance, i'd have paid $490 and would have the remaining $800 sitting in a bank earning interest.
Has anyone out there consciously opted out of health insurance? I'm young and healthy so I have no pressing health concerns so I am seriously debating doing so. Of course, health insurance prays on the "what ifs". What if I get into a horrible car accident tomorrow? What if I come down with a disease that requires a lot of expensive treatment? And so forth. I just feel like I'm getting so little back for all that I've put in. I've put in THOUSANDS of dollars over the years into this system that has saved me maybe a couple hundred bucks and it's just hard to not be a little bitter about it.
What in the world insurance do you have???!!! I too pay about 80$ a month...I've had Aetna, AvMed, about to get Total Health Choice (never heard of it but seems like the same thing & ANYTHING is cheaper than Blue Cross! which is the only other option) and prescriptions are bet 5 & 15 dollars, co pay for Drs is 15-30 dollars, NO lab work/xrays are EVER not covered!!! Dentist (had MetLife, now will have Delta) doesn't even CHARGE a copay for your twice a year cleaning/check up. Yes you pay part for fillings and any other work! I had a root canal & a crown - all together came to 600$ - but it would have been WAAAAAY more without ins - plus I put it on my itemized deductions on my taxes! So I don't get it...?
You might be healthy now, but who knows what could happen in the future? Take my uncle for example, who was a perfectly healthy 55 year-old man... started feeling "tired" and achy, so he went to the doctor, and was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. That was about 2 1/2 years ago, and he's been through chemo & other treatments, but THANK GOODNESS has been clear for over a year now. He never saw that coming, and without health insurance the bills would've reached $1 million+. Same thing with my best friend's father, who unfortunately didn't survive Leukemia - his costs would have been around $2M by the time he died (at age 45-ish).
You also have to consider that, heaven forbid, if you don't make it... your family will be stuck with those costs. Sorry to be a downer, but this is the speech my parents gave when I considered cancelling my insurance. Thankfully I just got a full-time government job, which provides awesome benefits! I know the whole system sucks donkies, but it's the kind of thing you'll want when you need it - just like auto insurance. Better to have coverage now, as a healthy man, than trying to get it after being sick, injured, or aged.
We're 50-somethings and we have never ever had dental insurance.
And yes, health insurance is now more expensive than ever.
With my husband's new job and consequent lay-off, our already pricey health insurance situation turned into an even worse mess, more than we even thought possible.
Believe me, the thought of opting out or temporarily lapsing did occur to us, but never all that seriously. For one thing, we still have a 17 year old in the house, for another, it's as Gizmo says: when you reach your 50's, the reality of major illness and/or mortality becomes all too apparent.
It is indeed maddening and frustrating to make those payments, but the older we get the more real those 'what ifs' become.
In the fall, our older kid will be living and working in France. I told him to get a physical and a dental checkup while he's there.
I just received a bill from my most recent visit to the dentist, which was your standard once every six months teeth cleaning. The bill came to $143 and some change. I was told that my insurance would cover $43 of it and I was to pay the other $100. Every time I get a bill, from the dentist or doctor, I find myself doing the math and just thinking that health insurance has been such a waste. It seems like for all I have put in, I've gotten so little in return and I'm seriously debating opting out of health insurance in the future and taking what money I would have taken out of my paycheck to pay for it, and placing it in a private account, so at the very least I have the money and it doesn't feel like I'm just flushing it down the toilet.
In doing the math, my company takes out a little over $80 from my paycheck every month. This adds up to around $1000/year that I am putting into the system. Last year, I went to the doctor's once. The visit cost around $200, including the cost of a prescription. Insurance paid $110 of it while I forked over $90. Adding up last year's totals, the two teeth cleanings and the visit to the doctors, which is an average year for me, I paid out of my pocked $290. If I did not have health insurance, it would have cost me $490. However, if you tack on the premiums I have been paying every month, then in reality, I paid $1290 out of my pocket last year, whereas if I did not have health insurance, i'd have paid $490 and would have the remaining $800 sitting in a bank earning interest.
Has anyone out there consciously opted out of health insurance? I'm young and healthy so I have no pressing health concerns so I am seriously debating doing so. Of course, health insurance prays on the "what ifs". What if I get into a horrible car accident tomorrow? What if I come down with a disease that requires a lot of expensive treatment? And so forth. I just feel like I'm getting so little back for all that I've put in. I've put in THOUSANDS of dollars over the years into this system that has saved me maybe a couple hundred bucks and it's just hard to not be a little bitter about it.
Don't drop it. It doesn't matter how good your health is "now".
Usually when you sign up, you have some control establishing what your deductible is....what the threshold is you'll pay for before insurance kicks in 100%.
I've always made mine $1000 because I rarely get sick so I prefer the lower monthly premium that goes with a higher deductible. If you go to the doctor with a deductible like mine, you're going to pay out of pocket until you hit $1000 (in my case).
Now....for dental, I've never seen good dental plans and most cap annually at $1800 or less, some maybe more. I had extensive work done on my teeth exactly two years ago. I got the $1800 paid into the total cost and I paid $18,000 to pay the remainder. It had to be done, luckily I could afford it, so I considered it like buying a car with cash to pay for my dental work. At least dental put something into it. And many people get work done in December so that they can submit a claim that year, then more work to finish in January where they can submit again.
Unforeseen health issues:
When I quit my job in May of 2005, I took the COBRA even though it cost me $316/month which I thought was outrageous. I hadn't been in the hospital since 1969 when I had my appendix removed. I hadn't been to a doctor in years and I had no reason to expect that that would change.
However, I developed pneumonia and I ignored it not wanting to go to the doctor. I ignored it to the point I stopped eating because going to the refrigerator took more energy than I had and I couldn't even shower without becoming exhausted and having to rest.
Finally..I realized I was in an extremely dangerous situation (not being able to breathe kind of forces the point!!) and I took two hours to shower and change my underwear and get dressed. I got in my truck and drove to emergency. I was admitted immediately. 4.5 days in the hospital and I had 1.67 litres of fluid drained from my right lung (that's almost the volume of a boss of soda pop people buy for parties at the store). They had to open a hole through my back, pierce my lung in a way that didn't collapse it, then the device had a spigot on it and they began filling containers.
The bill was $20,000.
COBRA whittled it down to just about $10,000 and paid all of it except that I was asked to pay $75.
Had I been uninsured, I'd have been handed the $20,000 bill and believe me, they would not have discounted anything.
KEEP your insurance. Raise the deductible to save money monthly if you like. Even if you have nothing to lose, it's not worth putting yourself in such financial risk.
I have opted out, and just have a catastrophic plan with a high deductible. Recommended for those in very good health though. There is a relatively new option, called an HSA (health savings account?), and am looking into that.
I wish I was paying a small premium. My company and the other companies I've worked in the past did not have health insurance, so I purchase it on my own. I pay $330 a month for me and $101 for my son. I do have a $2000 deductible per year and no prescription drug plan. I do have a $45 co-pay, tho. Luckily I'm healthy. My son had to get stitches in his hand - the first thing the ER asked was if we were insured. If he wasn't, we'd have to go to County Hospital and probably wait 8 to 10 hours. Keep the insurance - it's peace of mind.
Location: Lots of sun and palm trees with occasional hurricane :)
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I work in healthcare and I have HMO coverage through my employer group plan. I pay about $50/mth for my share of the cost. My employer offered several other plans that were not as restrictive but the better they were, the more out of pocket for me and with deductibles. My dental insurance is about another $50/mth and they pay $1500/yr towards what THEY consider covered services. My dental bills are huge but my other medical bills are not so bad. I'm basically healthy but do get my annual this and annual that.
My son is 34 and healthy. He "cannot" afford to pay for his own health insurance and his employer doesn't offer although they would help subsidize the costs of whatever he wants to get as a individual. Individual plans are extremely expensive and come with high deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance. You also have to be healthy, not past a certain weight and age, and not have had any "condition" in the past two years. If so, then those conditions are excluded for usually another 24 mths. You can avoid that if you're signing up for a plan because your group coverage terminated, or will terminate, or you're running out of COBRA time. If you let time go by, it gets very hard to get coverage again.
ack to my son. He's a normal (well....) healthy young adult and as we all know, medical is the last thing we think about saving for. We don't bat an eyelash for plasma tvs or ipods or cars but we cringe when we have to dish out any amount of money for medical bills.
OK back to the point. My son was in the Chicago airport about 1 mth ago. He started feeling weird and had palpitations. He asked the airline desk person if there was a first aid station there. She called the paramedics and they took him to the emergency room. Bloods, EKGs, X-rays, CT scan to rule out a bunch of stuff (even drug testing) and then let him go at 1:30 AM - nothing wrong. I think it was just stress from 2 heavy travel days and not enough sleep.
He's now looking at $3,000 from the Chicago hospital and plus the bills here from the private doctor to repeat a lot of things and tell him he needs to lose some weight! (which mama doc here has been telling him for quite a while)!
If you have a individual plan, do your homework and analyze your personal needs. It may be that that $3,000 deductible and 60/40 coverage after you meet that is not worth it. But you never know! If you do end up having to use your coverage and do end up paying A LOT before the plan picks-up, well then you can deduct from your taxes. However, you know that you can only deduct after you have spent quite a bit before anyway. I think it is 7.5% of your AGI, then you start deducting.
Bottom line after all is said and done. KEEP YOUR INSURANCE!!!!
Gosh, I hope this made some sense. I kept jumping and mixing but....my brain goes a lot faster than my fingers!
One other thing to keep in mind is the ''usual, customary, reasonable" amount which is basically when the doctor or hospital charges a HUGE amount-and if you're uninsured, they can go right ahead and do just that-but if you have insurance, your doctor or hospital will usually accept that amount as payment in full. If you have the opportunity to have insurance, do it-accidents happen, and those bills could ruin you financially otherwise. Just my opinion!
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which is the only other option) and prescriptions are bet 5 & 15 dollars, co pay for Drs is 15-30 dollars, NO lab work/xrays are EVER not covered!!! 
So I don't get it...?
He never saw that coming, and without health insurance the bills would've reached $1 million+. Same thing with my best friend's father, who unfortunately didn't survive Leukemia - his costs would have been around $2M by the time he died (at age 45-ish). 
Don't Opt Out
