Quote Originally Posted by know1 View Post
I knew what you meant

There are just so many reasons that I think it's a bad idea that I don't have time to list them all.

In the first place, I think the way we utilize health insurance is poor anyway. We should be using it like we do car or house insurance where we have a high deductible and we pay for most "daily" things out of pocket. Imagine what the cost of groceries would be if we had a system of "grocery insurance" where we gave our money to some other industry (grocery insurance), they set the prices, paid for our groceries, and kept their own operating expenses and profit. We'd NEVER accept that and the cost of groceries would go through the roof, but that is exactly what we do with health insurance.

But getting back to employer provided, I don't like it for several reasons.

1. It is a sort of "remote control" where the money comes right our of our paycheck and we never see it. At the very least, if we were paid that money and then had to make the health insurance payments ourselves, we might see how ridiculous the costs have become and start really trying to make changes.

2. We allow some of the most important decisions that we have to be made by our employer - i.e. control over our healthcare decisions. They are the ones choosing the health insurance provider and plan options. Why wouldn't we want to be able to decide what plan is best for us on our own?

3. If I had had the option of my employer giving me the money it paid for my insurance premiums from day one and had been able to choose my own plans, I would have gone with a high deductible plan that I only used for major illnesses or injuries and I would have saved up the difference over all these years and likely had a huge medical emergency fund at this time. Instead, I just had my money taken out and added to by my employer and funneled to some plan that wasn't in my best interest. There wasn't anything I could do about it. Sure I could have opted out, but then I wouldn't be getting that money from my employer.

It's gotten to the point where people almost equate having a job with their own healthcare. They are vastly different things and I think they should be separated.
Man, you hit the NAIL on the head.

I'm on an HSA and have fairly low premiums, but a CRAZY high deductible. When I compare my plan with other plans that are non HSA with high premiums and low or now deductible, my plan actually comes really close or beats them.

The Bean Counters in every insurance company have huge what-if processes to determine what are the best plans for a particular demographic in a particular age group or region. TRUST me on this.....they know how each and every type of plan breaks down...and can give you the profits of each type of plan off the top of their head.

I have no issue paying for the stuff I SHOULD pay for.....the maintenance. But when I cut my arm off, I expect my insurance company to pony up and fix it. AS THEY HAVE.

Do the math sometime.......you will be surprised how it actually pans out.

Later,

Geo