for those of you with healthcare through work

i highly recommend you take a close look at your benefits package. i just got mine today. for equivalent coverage for my wife and i, we are jumping up from 87/month to 480/month. im a bit in shock. i feel bad for most of my work because we have a large manufacturing workforce that makes anywhere from $10-$20/hour and i know this is going to hurt. this is a bit ridiculous.

 

I worked for Inland Kenworth for a couple of months and had to pay $75/week while making only $12/hr. They didn't even tell me about it till after I was hired. It was union too.

 

Why did it jump? Does your company submit a lot of claims. Often that is the number one source of an increase. Bluecross bumped my old company by 25% and was inessence telling us they did not want us. We switched to United healthcare.
You also did not mention if you are on an HMO, PPO. It's real hard to generalize about anyone healthcare and an associated increase, but if you did not change any element of your plan, then that seems like a strange/huge increase.
What did the benefits coordinator say when you asked for an explanation of the increase?

Healthcare sucks.

 

Aren't healthcare benefits an option...in otherwords, you had an option to not enroll in it since they did not "tell you about it" upfront? Or is that a union thing?

 

according to the memo, company is switching from blue cross to aetna hmo and because of the healthcare reform act.

 

Mine went up a bit with higher co-pays. Also, my understanding is that the amount the company pays on their end will now be taxable income for YOU and I to help offset the cost of Health Care Reform.

 

Another lovely O'bummer act.....

Not the CHANGE i was looking for....

 

Are you serious?

 

told ya so....where's Tedroy when you need him?

 

Ok, now that's a load of crap.

 

Not true! The cost the employer pays to cover you and your family must be disclosed on the W2 beginning next year but under the law is not taxed as income to you. It does however enable the IRS to go after a company if it's determined they have a so-called "cadillac plan." http://www.wscpa.org/Content/39530.aspx

 

You're mistaken. What looks like an increase in the cost of your plan is really your plan getting more affordable.

You're welcome.

 

Is this due to your company not wanting to contribute as much to your healthcare plan? My husband's plan has been steadily increasing in price, while decreasing in coverage, for the past 3 years. They've switched plans and contributed less which makes the monthly costs about the same for the employees, but in reality, if you have any medical expenses (like a peds appointment for your sick kid), it costs significantly more (like NONE of it was covered by insurance--about $100 for the MD visit alone, not including antibiotics).

 

Just a thought: Maybe it's a grand conspiracy to make higher profits for the healthcare providers, AND at the same time, those who opt out of having healthcare insurance will not know the true state of their health (Ie., if they have cancer, or some other fatal disease) and die younger, so that they will not have the chance to go on Medicare, collect social security, or any of the benefits older folks may collect, in turn saving those programs millions, if not billions, of dollars...


....or, since Obama's healthcare plan mandates that everybody carry healthcare insurance, this is a way of growing the pool of people who will be eligible to opt into government run/paid for healthcare.

Or, am I on the wrong track????

 

no clue. my rates havent really changed in the 6+ years ive been here. my coworker emailed our benefits people and their response was essentially a lot of the insurance companies are raising their rates because of the healthcare reform, and aetna was actually cheaper for us than sticking with blue cross.

 

Well, we just did our benefit enrollment for 2011 and one of the managers mentioned it. I hope you guys are right and he is wrong. I did read what Jeff posted. I'll just have to wait and see if there are any changes at all to MY bottom line.

 

Sorry to hear your cost went up.
In my line of work i'm seeing it daily with my clients..

In the past, as a benefit, many companies paid some if not all of an employees health benefits. With the economy in the shape it is, it's an expense that needs/has to be cut. It sucks!! and trust me we are all feeling it.

 

....or you could just wait for Medicare, like I did. It actually works! I'm sure the government will find some way to change this...

 

Just got the updated package from my employer today too. They've passed further costs onto us. My basic HMO plan went up 13%, but to get the same coverage I have now I need to jump to the PPO which is 30% higher. Just isn't right.

 

While your coverage went up for you, in all probability your company is reducing the part it covers.

We had the same thing at my last job. Anthem did have a serious rate increase due to our company having a lot of folks over 60 that were having a lot of claims in a short period of time as well as two individuals that suddenly had cancer issues.

We switched to United and our individual costs went down for the first year as the older folks were forced into retirement and/or died.

The next year our company switched from covering 90% of our coverage to only covering 40%. Essentially increasing our share 500% - that was a wake up call and it has nothing to do with "Obamacare" no matter how bad some folks need it to be.

Your company can claim all they want about it being because of the new health care legislation, but the bottom line is that they are lying to your face.