patrick.net

Recalling your list, if you eliminated 2,4,5,6 then I'd say most likely yes. Otherwise no

Id just as soon take the compensation as cash and tell the insurance system to suck my egg

The day I leave this job, every cent that was ever spent in my name, vanishes into thin air

I couldn't imagine a worse deal

SFace says

What's your age and known condition?. Does your employer pay for the plan fully or partially. If you do not participate, will they provide a cash replacement.

This thread is open to all situations, but in my particular situation, I'm deciding between taking the employee option or see what else is out there. My employer doesn't pay for the plan and the provider is Aetna, which I think sucks so I don't like the idea of using them.

I'm healthy, 30s, and typically spend $0.00/yr on health care. Employee heath insurance spreads the risk for insurance providers but that, of course, means that healthy employees subsidize less healthy ones, so I might do better on the market.

Evaluating a health insurance plan by Bankrate

Anyone know of a good site for picking health insurance based on your criteria? If not, that would be a good website idea.

Doing the Math on Employer Health Insurance, NYT

Our post last month on the McKinsey & Company study that suggested — but absolutely did not predict — that up to 30 percent of employers would shed the health insurance plans they now provide workers in 2014, when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act largely takes effect

errc says

The day I leave this job, every cent that was ever spent in my name, vanishes into thin air

I couldn't imagine a worse deal

That perfectly describes Aetna's Flexible Spending Accounts. Each year, you lose what you don't spend and you lose everything if you change jobs.

I'm thinking that a private Health Savings Account (HSA) might be the best option. From my understanding, you own the money in your HSA and it cannot be forfeited or taken away. All money left over is rolled over and you earn interest tax free.

What happens with a HSA if you die? Does it go to your estate or does the government and/or some corporation managing it take a slice or all of it?

Aetna flex spending account garbage. I have aetna through wife's provider....Deductible far lower (1/10) than what my parents pay through their business for a crappy HDHP from BC/BS NJ

7 tips for choosing a health savings account by BankRate

Excellent FAQ: Health Savings Accounts (HSA)
http://www.healthequity.com/HealthAccounts/HSA/HSAFAQ.aspx

High Deductible Health Insurance Plans for Individuals

On a national level, no employer medical insurance is dreadful, but as SFace pointed out, individual mileage may vary: if you have high covered expenses, group plans let you shift much of the cost onto other people, and there is a huge tax subsidy. Also note that employer insurance plans vary widely, some are practically illusory covering almost nothing while others are a tax dodge to cover almost everything imaginable. (Usually, low-level employees get stuck with the illusory plans, while senior executives are allowed to charge all sorts of things to their "health insurance" coverage.) As a nation, we would be better off if employer medical insurance did not exist, but some individual employees do benefit.

Found a good site for picking health insurance. Almost like using NewEgg for picking hardware.

US News Best Health Insurance Plans

I'm leaning towards BlueOptions Predictable Cost 535 from BlueCross/BlueShield. HDHP that's HSA-compatible.

Well lets see, I pay roughly $2,500 a year for me and my wife for health coverage. And on my taxes, the company I work for reported they paid $7,000 for our medical benefits, that's $9,500 total. I can't believe that any open market coverage is going to be less for better coverage. One thing you need to remember is the more employees the company has, the better deal they get from the insurance companies. The company I work for has over 300 employees.

I have a friend that was working for a company that had less then 15 employees and he was paying $600 a month for coverage for him, his wife and daughter. I don't know how much his company chipped in, but I'm sure it was at least as much as he was paying, that would make the total about $14,000 a year.

Last year my wife was working for a company that has over 5,000 employees and we were only paying $100 a month for better coverage then we have now.

Depends on the company and the situation. Mine pays a flat rate per employee to a benefit trust plan operated by my union which buys insurance for everyone at negotiated rates. I pay nothing out of pocket but a $3 copay when I visit the doctor. It's a pretty sweet deal and I know it's not usual. Medical insurance for my family of five would otherwise be a whole lotta cash.

It's only worth it in a Liberal mantra sorta way...
"It's better than nothing."

I ended up getting employer based healthcare for the company I've been contracting for. My wife got a serious test result that suggested it could be cancerous. So I went to the owner of the company and told him I had to quit and become indigent, so that I could get the best healthcare in the world. He offered me full time under their employment and insurance to begin immediately.

We went with the Cadillac plan, because at that time we weren't sure how serious her problem might get. They deduct 324 a week, or a little over 1400 a month.
While that is great for PC Doctors, and the prescriptions are dirt cheap. We realized after she had the mass removed and all of the other related procedures, and specialist visits related to her condition, that we still had to pay 20% of all of those bills. Which was the exact same amount people on the 1st tier of 4(for Florida Blue) has to pay.
The first tier is only 80 bucks a WEEK, and only covers generics for medicine. IF there is no generic then we have to pay full price.
Also the detectible per family member is 2K instead of $500.

So starting March 1st were going on the 1st tier plan. I figure for that extra 1,000 a moth we'll save, there would be more than enough to cover any specialist visit or any premium brand medicine that would hit a healthy family of 4. Also my wire finds these pharm discount cards, that in some instances have been cheaper discount than our Gold plan insurance.

Gold insurance is for people that have chronic conditions where their medicine is in the thousands a month.

The way I see it, in March 1st when the cheap plan kicks in and takes place. It will be like we've always done it. Just pay out of pocket, and the inurance will be there so we can at least get in the door and get care, if something does happen.
Doctors and Hospitals wont even look at you if you don't have insurance, even if you do have more than enough money for the proceudure. The way they look at is, they'll tell you a procedure is will be $1200. But they hope you don't have the money.
When you tell them fine, and pay them. After you've waited in the waiting room the Doctor comes out and tells you. He/She isn't comfortable performing the procedure, because anything could go wrong. And if an ambulatory emergency came up during the operation/procedure, you would be a liablity, because 10s of thousands of dollars of unforseen work could have to be done to save your life. and they would be on the hook to not let you die during the operation they were performing.

So to answer your question, while it's cheaper to just pay out of pocket, the whole damn healthcare system in this county isn't worth it. No matter what you have or don't have.

The only people who have it made in this country are the piss poor people who go the Emergency room, and get operations through social worker welfare groups.

In the last 10 years, I know about 5 people who got serious stage 1-3 cancers, and were treated and never saw one bill. They are all alive today and cured.
I know about 6 people who had cancer on employer based insurance. and 4 of those people are dead.
just because you're insured, life saving procedures and follow ups, are ofter not done because of executive decisions or if you want those done, you'll have to pay out of pocket. Like CT scans after mass removal, to make sure they got it all. Usually they are told by the ins companies to wait three months, against the Doctors suggestion. Also the waits to get procedures done or hell even diagnosed. Two of the people I'm talking about complained to their doctor for up to 6 months before they were even diagnosed.
Where as the poor people in the emergency room, they get every thorough test ran before they leave. They know they have cancer the day they complained.

See if you can get accepted into any supposedly "free market" plan, even perfectly healthy.

I had Blue Shield, may they rot in hell, which was charging me about $900/month for a family of four with an $8,000 deductible. Meaning it pays nothing until your medical charges are over $8,000 in a calendar year. And the premiums consistently rose at at least 20% per year. Nothing to do with any conditions. Those were just their published rates for families in our age groups.

So the $900 per month got me nothing at all except catastrophic event coverage. In theory I also was eligible for one annual physical, but in practice my attempt to get physical was not covered because it was mis-coded (mistake or not?). Very hard to fix that error, though I did fix it eventually.

So now I've got an employer-sponsored plan from Cigna, which in theory is $450/month from me and another $800 from my employer for complete coverage except for office copays of like $20. We will see if they actually do pay, or if there is evil tiny print that means they really don't pay.

Here is the solution, IMHO:

1. For non-essential care, all prices must be presented in advance of treatment. Every medical provider must have a publicly available price list! Yes, even if this means people make treatment decisions based on prices, which is what doctors say should never be allowed to happen.

2. For essential care, the government must set prices. There is no free market when you are not free to walk away, so prices go to infinity, and beyond.

Note that neither of these requirements has anything to do with taxes. It's just about preventing extortion.

Dan8267 says

Soliciting opinions. Is employer-provided health insurance a better or worse deal than what you can get in the free market? Do you know of a good or bad health insurance provider? If so, speak up here.

Employer coverage is often a better deal. This starts with the premiums being paid with pre-tax dollars.

I pay 28% in Federal taxes, 9.33% in state taxes, and 1.45% in Medicare which allows me to spend 63% more on employer coverage than private market for the same impact on what's left over.

If I earned less money I'd also be paying 6.2% on Social security and 1.0% California State Disability insurance which would allow me to spend 85% more on the employer plan.

Employers also pay FICA and Medicare; so in that situation they'd have to spend 2.2X as much on my pay and taxes as my employer plan ran so I could spend as much in the private market.

There's also the employer contribution. I don't pay anything for my coverage and only 80% of my wife's. It's rare that declining health coverage translates into a take-home pay increase and even then it's a fraction of the value - at my last job I could have my employer spend $400 tax free on my insurance, or give me a $100/month taxable credit of which I'd take home $63 which doesn't compare well to the $200/month I'd spend on a high-deductible plan or $300-400 such a plan would cost a 50 something person.

There's no surcharge for pre-existing conditions.

And there's no adverse market selection. 55% of Americans get our insurance through our employers, and 31% from the government. The left overs without health conditions often decide health insurance isn't worth buying meaning the risk pool is statistically sicker leading to necessarily higher rates.

This is because the game is rigged by corporatism. There's more money available when health insurance companies' premiums are paid with pre-tax dollars. There's much more money where everyone in a company gets the same plan and the plan benefits are determined by appeals to the masses who just look at deductible (I once had a choice between $250 and $500 deductibles with the same co-insurance from the same insurance company and choose the later because the premiums where $1000/year lower).