Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Employee Health Insurance

We just got a new 4 year contract at work, starting 10/1 any
new hires will only be offered single coverage health care.

No spouse or family coverage.



Employees, is your employer doing something similar?
How do you go about insuring your family?

We have been in the situation of not being able to absorb the
high family rate when I worked a different job.
Wife and I each had single policies, had the kids on the Chip program
insurance. We had enough income that we paid the full amount to
insure them, and they ended up on two different policies.
4 people 2 companies, 4 different policies. Goat sex central!


This deal really pissed me off, always thought the difference in pricing
showed business as worried about keeping the Mule pulling, but no
concern for their (families?) welfare.

This, pulls back the shroud and proves it.

Not sure since we dont' have kids

I will ask a new guy see what he was offered

I pay more in premiums per check because my daughter is on my policy but I receive a bigger annual payment into my HSA from my employer due to having a dependent on my policy so that it’s basically about a wash.

My wife’s insurance is covered through her employers health insurance which in our case both policies are about equal. My employer only covers spouses that are not offered private insurance (basically a non working spouse).

Honk for Joey.....

You have zero clue the cost associated with employing someone. Most employees believe money grows on trees, and never stop to consider that they have to make the business owner at least 150% of their wage to be profitable. Obviously union since you mentioned a contract. What percentage of your dues wind up in the coffers of the democrat party?

my work has never covered my kids ....nor did i think they should

A spouse with their own insurance I get it. An employer that only offered insurance that wouldn’t cover your minor children… I’d be looking for a different employer. Frankly I find that hard to believe. Unless you expected the government to pay for your kid’s healthcare you’d almost have to look for a different job.

If you’re making enough to buy private policies for your kids healthcare than you have a job decent enough to cover them for a relatively small up charge.

It’s all just part of the compensation pie. Companies figure out what they have to spend to have people work for them, then divvy it up in wages and bennies. My company has always been self-insured, and hired an “insurance company” to administer the plan, which apparently saves them money over just buying a plan from someone. Now that I’m retired, they have a fund to pay for my insurance just as they have one for my pension, and they report on its finances periodically the same way. Employees and retirees not yet on Medicare have options for their coverage, some requiring additional payments from the worker. I always took the no-cost plan. Once reaching Medicare age, the option is take the Advantage plan or don’t. My wife is 9 years away from Medicare, so she still has the same insurance as current employees, as would our kids if we had any. No cost to us for our plans as yet.

After I retired, new employees were put in a separate tier, with no traditional pension, but additional contributions for their 401Ks. No contact with any of them, so I don’t know how their medical plans work. My son and his wife juggle their plans to get coverage for themselves and the kids at the best price. It’s a annual chore to figure out the best deal, but she works for a German company and their bennies are really good.

I can tell you it cost us $450/month for single employee only coverage. Family coverage started at $1100/month and went up.

We ended up offering everyone single coverage and if you wanted family, we contributed $200 towards it, but you were responsible for the remainder. In talking to other small businesses, we had one of the most generous health insurance plans in our area.

It was a strong recruiting tool.

We sold the business recently. The new health plan of the corporate take over is an abortion.

Mine and the wife’s previous employers would cover the fam, but the cost was pretty steep.

We each ended up covered by our respective employers and the kids had their own policy through a med share type program. Pretty sure it was Christian based. Wife found it, it penciled out, and we ran with it. Coverage wasn’t great but would keep us from going tits up in case of a serious medical event.

Insurance companies suck azz. Our whole medical system is a joke.

Agreed, total joke. We pay $12000 a year for two mid 50s people. And that is down after 4 years of Trump. Good luck as we all move forward with this stuff.

My coverage in the early 2000’s was great. Then the HCA happened. Every year the deductibles have gone up, the premiums have gone up, and the coverage sucks azz.

Insurance companies and the massive health care conglomerates have fugged it all up.

maybe i am not understanding the post...my company pays for me and i can pay for my kids to have coverage if i choose but the company only pays for me ....i thought thats the way most companys work

I see a few companies around here going to single only insurance but they are realizing that the people they get are young with no responsibilities or ethics, or the older folks that can't do the physical labor things.

I know of one that went back to doing family coverage so they could get better workers.

I can't complain. For a family of 3 I pay around 140 a week for medical, dental and vision and a grand in the HSA (total).

Now if the spouse has medical insurance availability, they will drop her to force her on her own companies insurance.

My wife doesn't work. So my company never questioned keeping my family on my insurance.

Coverage is going down hill but it's still coverage.

Good post.

That’s about the same as mine. I pay about $180 per month for my daughter and I but get $1200 back annually in the HSA. If I only covered myself the premiums would run about $80 per month for the same healthcare with dental and vision but I’d only get $300 contributed to my HSA.

It sounds like I was wrong. My employer requires some out of pocket cost on my part regardless even if only for me but will cover my dependent children at a reasonably small additional charge.

Let's see,
match my SS,
Workers Comp (not current on price, but it's dam expensive)
$2.51/hr into pension
80% of the over $20k for insurance

Pretty sure in our case it's not 150% to cover cost and start earning, but it's
substantial. We used to have an annua "State of the Company" meeting.
Along with brochures with breakdowns showing it all.
Also they would present the Company finances, no $#s.
But percentages. Products, machines, raw materials......
Geek that I am I enjoyed all that.

One thing that always stuck out.

Despite being the highest paid place
in the county, our total labor was 8% of expenses.
At no time has management ever directly complained about
cost of labor. In any way. They compare us to surrounding business and use the region's cost of living against us,
but have never, ever, claimed labor was expensive.

Not sure what percentage of dues goes to political things, any is too much.
But of my $6/week, most of which goes to our local which is 100%
Republican, it can't be a whole lot.

To clarify for others.
There will be no insurance for new employees families.
No avenue within our policy to acquire it either.

The officers tried to negotiate higher rates for current employees, other
concessions. Total no go.

We are small enough that Obama care regulations, don't apply.

18 years ago they started a deal of paying family policy people $500/month to not use our insurance, as long as the bought it somewhere.

Now only 60% use company insurance.
Pretty sure family coverage goes away for everyone eventually.

If your employer had a role in creating your kids, I'd expect him to be responsible.

LOL but you probably claim to want to Make America Great Again while being a shill for globalist that outsource everything to China and sweatshops so that Apple and Nike to can make a product overseas for a few bucks and sell it at a 1000% markup with a “designed in the USA logo.”

I'm self employed (LLC actually). I pay (LLC pays) $1600/month, family of 4. Healthcare in this country is out of control, but I won't start down that rabbit hole.

So much stupidity and supposition in so few words. Well done. Now take some responsibility.

Ditto.

I take full responsibility. Having read this thread everyone in my family has far better healthcare coverage than most.

If that’s the case and you are unhappy with it, go find another job. You didn’t state what you do but assuming you have some skills there’s a shortage in the skilled trades right now. My guys make about $115k a year as heavy equipment mechanics. People stupidly put up with all kinds of nonsense from prik employers but find every excuse to stay it seems. Best thing you can do is switch employers every 3-5 years. Loyalty will just get you schitt on!

Good advice, sort of.

Never been happy at a job.
100%
Every job has lumps in the gravy, gotta decide what's a deal breaker, what's a deal maker.

In this area, with my time on this job, I ain't going anywhere soon.
In less than 10 years, I'm out, might check out even sooner.

That said, things change. I would try to keep a son from going to work
there. The union will likely become more of a blessing to the employer
than the employee over time. It wouldn't become the first place of its kind to be union and under compensated.

Take what we’ll give you or we’ll threaten to outsource to China or an illegal Mexican.

As mentioned above moving jobs every so often is good advice.

The trades covers a big swath. I worked in the trades for 10 years and was happy to leave for a better paying more stable job in the chemical industry. The trades can be a great decision for some but are not all that they’re cracked up to be.

30-40 employees and the owner, his brother’s, his sons and a few nephews make bank the other 20 make $65k a year averaging out to $115k overall since they’re all tradesmen. There’s nothing wrong with that but it skews the numbers and is the norm in the industry. With travel time unpaid for between jobs at employee expense and zero paid holidays and zero vacation time. The healthcare and retirement were good. I was with the IBEW local 692 for reference.

It can be spun a lot of ways but overall for Joe average most tradesmen when factoring in travel or living out of motels, the amount of knowledge and backbreaking work involved most are under paid and not raking in well over six figures consistently on anything close to a standard 40 hour workweek.

If the average tradesman was making anywhere near a $115k a year we wouldn’t haven’t a shortage and guys leaving it for other industries.

Why not ,Biden and the whole Democratic party does.

We use to pay 100 percent of the premium for the whole family but we wanted to attract the best. It turned out to be a mistake because several of our employees had spouses that were eligible for good plans through their work at minimal cost but obviously didn't take it because it was free through us. Several new hires said they would take higher pay rather than have health insurance and the board agreed. They always came back a year later and demanded health benefits on top of the extra pay. It was a mess.

I frequently told the board that employees should be responsible for at least a bit of their premium. It cost the company an average of $2000 per month per employee for heath care. After we got bought out we had to pay 33% of our premium. It costs me $700 a month for my family. When I quit I went on cobra and it was $2100 per month. I've never had a mortgage that high. Pre Obama our most expensive families were $800 a month total cost for a premium plan and you could keep your Dr.

Bb

The county ins.went that way this year.

Glad the wife retired last year.

If you have a spouse and/or kids it costs an additional amount on top of what yours costs.

When she retired the ins.changed to another company and in some ways it's worse some ways it's better.

In a lot of states, if the employer doesn't offer employee family health insurance, the dependents are eligible for state health benefits.

Had a conversation with my brother last week about health insurance. He still lives near Amsterdam, retired, early 60's, pays his own health insurance (full premium, private market insurance). His premium is $950. Per YEAR.

Healthcare costs in this country are completely, utterly out of control. I'd like to blame the HCA, but that just made the problems worse, the whole sector was already rotten to the core before that.

Burleyboy,

One of the weirdest things of this contract deal was the insurance and
pay of new hires.

We just can't get anyone interested enough to apply.
Have had 2 vacancy jobs for months, filled one, fired him in two weeks.
Used to call the Job Service and request apps by name.
Ignored the rest. No one pulling for you? Your app was never looked at.
Now no apps.

Our starting rate sucks, no insurance on their family. WTF?
You can't hire, so you make yourself less appealing?

Mentioned we are down 2? Likely need 3, possibly six added in the
next few months. Can't wait to see how in the heck they plan to
attract any good people. We can't even get bad ones.

No No No.

we have the best system in the World.

No, No, No

we have the best system in the World

So move to Amsterdam.
Why exactly is healthcare, as an American, so expensive?

Our company pays 100 percent of the premiums for the whole family. Over the many years that I've been there the deductible has increased a little here and a little there but nun the less they still cover the costs for the whole family.
Typically, in our industry the younger folks would rather have more per hour in wages than the health insurance coverage as the health insurance coverage doesn't seem to have the same and or a better value to them.
The older folks that should be retired and enjoying themselves are sticking around long after retirement eligibility because the company provides full coverage family insurance that they rely on.

Fundamentally, because there is no way for the consumer to shop providers on price. It's a capitalist system where in a large portion of the transactions, neither the sellers, nor the buyers know what the cost of the transaction is. In many other transactions (expensive ones, particularly), the buyer is incapacitated and can't make an informed decision.

By economic definition, an "imperfect market".

I'm retired but my employer still pays in total for single coverage plus $200/month into an HSA. Currently, that is nearly $1000/month. Next option is +1 meaning one child, is extra but I don't know how much. The extra cost is shared by the employer and employee when I retired the employer kicked in an extra $200. Family is spouse and children. It is higher yet with the same $200 employer contribution.

There were three different plans for each insurance type when I left, the primary affect was on +1 and Family as it dropped the employee's out of pocket expense by limiting clinic and hospital choices and increasing out of provider costs. I stayed on the top tier in part as I lived outstate and my local clinic and hospital did not fall under the metro designation. It also means I pay a $2600 deductible and after that I have no more out of pocket for the remainder of the calendar year. As my former job has a high cancer rate and I've had two scares, that low deductible provides peace of mind.

The $200 HSA contribution was the result of Obama Care. The city refused to give anything to single coverage but increased employer contributions to +1 and even more to Family. The top tier plans were all in the Cadillac zone and we had just signed a 3 year contract locking the rates. The city would have had to eat the tax but we reopened the insurance part of the contract got the HSA contributions for single coverage to give everyone the same value in health care benefits.

The health care contract expires this year but I haven't heard what is being offered. That will probably change in the next week. I don't expect any significant changes though I highly doubt rates will go down.

A pretty good analysis.

And the interesting thing is, the price is different for so many people, depending on who's paying it would seem.

Our system is goverment mandated at this point.

Our healthcare is expensive because it is worth it. Any American that wants to spend less, can.

Lesser service is undoubtably cheaper. Go get it.

HCA gave alot of companies that offered a decent comprehensive health plan the opportunity to switch over to HSA plans where they pass cost increases onto employees in the form of higher deductibles. Obama coined the term "cadillac plan" and made it an elitist thing to offer a low cost HMO to employees when those poor huddled masses he represented didn't get anything.

Many people now have a catastrophic health care plan where a handful of things are covered by HCA by mandate but you pay for everything else full price until you hit your deductible, which I would guess for most family plans is any where from $5K - 8K. When I was in college, you could get a plan like that for $50 a month (minus the HCA mandates of course)

Obama ruined employer provided health care and at the same time created a new "tax" on working people in the form of health care deductibles.


This was all planned in an effort to give health care to the people who don't work and was punitive for Americans not allowing him to push thru national single provider plan where Uncle Sam manages your health.

There are definite downfalls to employer provided health care but when that became a widely available perk for the middle class in the 50's/60's, health care was affordable. Now no one can afford it and Obama's bright idea was to give it to the poor as a subsidized plan while the people who work get to pay a bigger chunk for it out of their own pocket.

I hate him for that.

that is a big driver, another issue is our government writing checks for health care for seniors while lobbyist advocate for greater health care coverage. Remember the concept of a ward in a hospital where multiple patients were in a central area cared for by 1 or 2 nurses? Now people push to avoid sharing a room at a hospital and demand individual care.

Of course we also let in millions of illegal aliens along with our current indigent who take advantage of being able to go into an emergency room to receive urgent care without concern of how it gets paid. Remember Mitt Romney running against Obama and was asked about that? His response was we already have health care, anyone can go into any hospital in American and receive care without insurance.


But your point is well taken - there are no price ceilings and while insurance negotiates rates with providers, the way around that is to pile on medical procedures and drugs. Few patients facing illness or disease are going to tell a doctor no when he tells them they need a test or need to take an expensive drug - and no one is going to shop around, especially with the concept of "in network" medical care.

Dutch,
One thing I have attributed to expensive medical, is the coding.
Take a car to the garage, get a bill from a gunsmith,
It will be itemized with plain language explaining every charge.

Go to the hospital, get a bill.
It will show a 69984, and ak85gj8 and N XYZPDQ.
The insurance company pays that bill without any review from you.
You look at the receipt, choke at the price, and throw it in the drawer.
Because you have no dang clue what it means.
You got a bandaid, was that a 69984? Or were you charged for an MRI?Fraud? Mistake? How would anyone ever catch it.

If your bill from Mr. GoodWrench shows 4 new tires at $2500, you
immediately know if you wanted tires, got the tires, and probably
know that was too much for the tires.

Medical bills? It's in code.
















KWFA you are exactly right.

Before Obama, many people with deeper pockets and less concern about
medical bills bought catastrophic plans. And they were really cheap.
$3-5k, deductible $10k max.

Now?
Those terms are a normal policy, at a very high premium.
Being sold to people where the premiums hurt, and the deductible and out of pocket maximums are crushing.

Obama did not make health care affordable.
He made it more affordable to have government subsidized insurance,
that came with high deductibles that those who bought it couldn't cover. Leaving them with insurance bills, mandated by law, but still unable to get health care. Many, would be better off banking premium money toward medical expenses.

I guess the days of average employed joe not worring about the cost of healthcare and insurance premiums because “ I get health insurance with my job” are coming to an end. I been self employed for over 20 years paying my own insurance premiums so I been feeling the pain for two decades. My current monthly premium at 60 years old is $1040 a month thru Florida Blue. $7500 deductible. I do get to write off some of my premium on my taxes. Which helps. Once they push the average joe into having pay for their own or their family premiums it be easy to convince them government healthcare is the way to go. Which is what the powers to be are wanting.
As far as changing jobs goes one day there will come a time when there isnt a job that has health insurance with it out there. Seems things are going that way.

I was one of those guys with a catastrophic policy. Basically hospitalization. I paid for most all my regular healthcare expenses. Paid 250 per mo for the policy. Had a $10k deductible. As soon as Obamacare kicked in my policy was no longer available. Premiums went to 650 a month and deductible was 7500 a year. So HCA didnt make it more affordable for me. Only for those who qualified for the lower rates because they had lower incomes.

Wife covered me for years until I was old enough to get on Medicare.

Me and the 2 kids are 350 a month, high deductible plan. Our deductible I think is 11k. That being said, the deductible for the top tier plan was 7500, with a 600 premium each month. So I'm saving 3k a year in premiums...while there is only a 3500 dollar difference in deductibles, no brainer to take the hd plan. Employer also throws 500 bucks in an hsa account for me each year for taking the hd plan. Its basically comes out the same but I'm paying a lower premium.

Family plan would be 1100 a month to add the spouse, she got single coverage at her job for about 200 a month.

I've actually been diving into researching the US healthcare system and it's a really complex set of problems that have gotten us here. To begin with, we should have never had a system where the majority of people receive their healthcare through their employer, shielding them from the actual costs. It's a throwback to WW2 and the imposed wage freezes of the time. The employers worked around the wage freezes by upping the benefits, including offering free healthcare.

That's just the start of the problem. We now have a system that's almost entirely taken the consumer out of the picture and provides zero incentive for controlling costs by either the consumer or healthcare providers.

Before she became eligible for Medicare wife was on Obamacare for a short while. The next SS C.O.L.A. raise resulted in an increase of around $20 (+/-) a month to our total monthly income --- That measly $20 increase to our monthly household income caused her monthly Obamacare premium to increase $120...

and the beloved unions helped usher in the liberals who gave us Obamacare.

Pay $473 per month for 3 of us. Me, wife, youngest son. Oldest is on his own. Medical, dental, vision.
$2500 max out of pocket.
$400 per person deductible
90/10 bill coverage
$35 copay for office visit
1 annual physical free

Not a small business, so 11,000 employees nation wide has some pull I reckon. Not a union shop.
I am happy.


Clyde

Ain't that the truth.

A provided breakroom?
Rest room facilities?
Utilities?
A roof over your head while working?
Local property and equipment taxes on the above?
Equipment to work with/on?
Personnel for handling payroll & general bookkeeping?

There's more to it than what most see.

Anyone with half a brain or even less knows union dues are no where near enough to cover health costs.

Yes, that is bad.

Those are not fixed per employee costs. Even if illegals payed under the table are hired same cost.

A bit of a point, overreaching a bit?
Facilities mostly are part of the job, not the employees.

Machines? You are going to blame the cost of machinery on hiring employees? Holy [bleep] am I expensive. If the machines are my fault,
are raw materials?



It is interesting how these threads show the resentment
some employers have for their employees.
Bet that is the employees fault, and that you are a fair, kind and benevolent
boss.

Since one of my fellow employees went to court to contest having to pay union dues, even when not a member years ago, I have a figure: 75% went to campaign contributions, almost if not entirely to Democrats. Since each state (and D.C.) had a different contract, the rules on dues varied. The court ordered the union to come up with a way for non-members to recover the portion of the dues levied not associated with collective bargaining, but the process was so restrictive that most just stayed in the union. I did as well, until I went to the VA company where right-to-work laws allowed people to quit and not have the dues collected. I dropped out then, and stayed out for the remainder of my career, roughly half of my 40 years. I figure I paid more than my share for the union’s efforts on my behalf during the first 20.

Our medical and pension, thankfully, are handled by the company, not the union. I’ve seen what can happen when the union gets control of all that money.

If my employer wants me to continue working for him, he can continue to provide insurance for my entire family, at no cost to me, or he can increase my wage enough to make up the difference.

But then he, and I, would have to pay SS on the difference, and I would have to pay income tax on the additional income. I like it the way it is.

You hit on one of the issues with our healthcare system. If your employer pays for it, you're able to pay for any of your portion using pre-tax dollars.

If you buy insurance yourself, you have to pay for it using post-tax dollars.

Our healthcare system needs an enema.

Goes both ways IME. Folks can always leave their employ if dissatisfied just as the company should be able to toss an employee so desired.

Yeah, funny the unions never figured that out. They just want to be active "partners" with no monetary investment. Just like the government.

Just heard today that all county honchos will be having a can't miss meeting about the Ins.that they have now.

Seems that a lot of folks think that retiring now is the way to go because of the changes that have been put in.

Just glad she is not working any more.

EdM,
That was always nice in theory, or in places with a job/worker ratio
favorable to employees. That sure wasn't anywhere around here.
We've bled workers for decades. If you wanted to live here choices
in employment were a price one paid. That's changed, in a good way.

Things always change, but we are in a period where things are changing
at a crazy pace, and in ways that are typically bizarre to us old fashioned folks. The changes are hurting everyone on the supply side.
Businesses are caught in the middle, while workers are at the bottom
of the pecking order. Tough times and adjustments are hitting the whole
system.





Notice the tone of several posters?
Attacking workers/unions?

Never hid the fact I'm union, not gonna re-hash hash I've frequently hashed.

Also haven't blasted the employer.
It's simple math, they wanna keep the money, I'd like payed more.
Standard fare. And it never changes, I'm well compensated, won't say
I'm not. This contact would be very good in non inflationary times,
for me.
My fight was for guys hired in the future, people I've not yet met.


This thread was simply trying to get a handle on how common this
employee only thing has become.

Seems like the better your health insurance the sicker you are. The government has mandated that you are dependent on the medical industry, pharmaceutical and insurance companies to survive, while they make record profits.

DBuck,
My post was more of a summary as it pertained to JM's post and what an employer/business needs produced to cover the cost of operating.
Was simply showing that there is much more expense[per employee] than payroll/HC/pension etc
Wasn't slamming anything or anyone.
Have zero issue with Unions.

We paid 100% of employee only and 50% of family HC up until about 15 years ago, rates went out of site and we reduced our portion to 50% of employee only.
There was no way that we could continue paying what we had prior and remain operating.

In this day, that's good insurance.

Honk for Obama.

He's the one who Commized health care.

The govt. has taken over the entire health care industry. Period. End of story.

Quote from DillonBuck:
"It is interesting how these threads show the resentment
some employers have for their employees.
Bet that is the employees fault, and that you are a fair, kind and benevolent
boss."

If directed at me then you are totally clueless.

Over 90% of our employees have stayed with us for 20+ years.This is over the 80+ years that we've operated.
They are the companies most valuable asset and become family.

In my tenure as 'boss' we've had:
One employee who's wife had major heart surgery not go well, the surgery was performed 150 miles away.
She stayed there for nine months.
The employee worked approximately 10 hours a week over that nine months[average], we paid him as if he were here full time along with benefits and helped with his living expense near the hosp. even though he requested a LOA.

Another elderly employee was diagnosed with lung cancer. His story is very similar to above except that it lasted 2 years up until he passed.

So if directed at me......

because Md's need Benz, their own airplanes and country club memberships and how dare we expect them to be accountable to their patients or the law

Don't you know, being a Dr is God given talent. Any so blessed are obligated to share that talent with the world.


For peanuts, eggs, and the occasional live chicken.


So I was told by an old man still working at 75 years, not because he loves to work. But because he can not support himself and his wife on Social Security alone. And neither has any savings, pensions, or other source of income.

Gotcha.

And you should have a few issues with unions.
They dam sure aren't perfect, formed to right wrongs, they sure
have committed their own wrongs. Past and present.
I say that as an objective union member.
But they aren't Satan, but they do give him money.


On the other post.
It was directed at you.
Read too much into what you said, was wrong.
My apologies.