A lot of folks in the right wing media bubble hear nothing but horror stories about “socialized medicine”
Edit: until I joined forums like MMM and met real people from other countries I had never once heard a positive story about single payer healthcare
Yeah, there was advertising money that went into those horror stories! I recently listened to a podcast episode about it, I think it was Planet Money? Certainly explained a lot.
My exposure to horror stories goes back at least as far as “HilaryCare” in the early 90s.
Half the voters in the country seem to be actively voting against changing it, so I’d assume they think it’s functional.
Sorry to politicize this thread. I’m just insanely frustrated with trying to find insurance for next year. It’s so much guessing. If the pandemic is still raging, I probably won’t go to as many doctors as I actually need. This year I’ve certainly avoided a lot of my care. My health has suffered, but it’s not life threatening. If the pandemic gets under control, I’d be going back to it.
Sometimes I have to remind myself the most optimal outcome isn’t worth my sanity. I don’t know what your options are, but is there one you would be ok with, both if you use no medical care, and if you max out your benefits (all it takes is one night in the ER for something weird, right)?
Help me decide what to do. I have 12 hours.
Facts
Option A: Workplan
Option B: Workplan; Leave Country and/or Quit Job in August
Option C: SSO’s plan
Can you clarify where the final numbers are coming from? Premiums + OOP max are $8332 for option A. What is the extra 6k? For option C I’m getting 3600 for premiums+drug, plus up to 2k in OOP max. Adding the extra taxes, that’s $8738? What am I doing wrong?
Option A: Premiums + OOP max * 2 - I will have to hit two OOP maxes this year because of plan year.
Option B: Premiums + Out of Pocket Max
Option C: Premiums + OOP Max + SSO Taxes + My loss of Health care cost Tax Credit
Given the state of economy and covid, option B (either leaving your job and staying here or leaving for Britain) seems not the greatest choice to me. Especially since you won’t know if Britain is an option in next 12 hours 
Personally, I would vastly prefer the certainty of option C, even if it (might) not be the mathematically optimal one. I like certainty even when it costs more.
Usually I do, too, I don’t know why I’m so resistant to it. I think two things:
What is SSO’s plan year? Jan-Dec?
Yes like a normal fucking company.
Oh yea, I remembered the other reason why I am kinda hopeful about options A+B - enbrel, the company that makes my drug costs is desperate to get me to stay on their $$$ drug and knows how to work the system and occasionally just cuts ACTUAL CHECKS to patients to pay for drug costs after they’ve exhausted co-pay assistance.
Does SSO use any healthcare? If so, would SSO’s healthcare use also go toward the same out of pocket? That’s how my plan works, so my spouse is on my plan even though he (currently) could do fine on a plan through his own work if we were doing the math totally separately. He doesn’t use nearly as much healthcare as I do, but since we have a combined deductible and OOP max, it ends up working out more favorably than we would have expected.
Plan B looks best from my personal perspective. Have no numbers, am unhelpful, but we know it’s a lower cost and better standard of living if you were to move out of the country.
I need help too- I was planning to stick with the HSA but only realized yesterday our new HDHP plans are terrible (we’re switching providers). I’ve been too busy at work to do the math on whether I should stay with an HSA or switch to a plan that actually covers things. I max my HSA and invest everything above the minimum required. I don’t know what the fees are for maintaining the HSA if I no longer am eligible to contribute.
My only medication that makes a significant difference between levels is about $500 per month through insurance. If I stick with the HSA it will not be covered at all.
Other meds are not nearly as expensive so wouldn’t make a difference; I’d stay with the HSA for sure if it was just them. Averaging $100/3 month supply.
NO CLUE if I will have no medical procedures or lots but I will definitely have specialty visits, probably 4 throughout the year (maybe more depending on December visits), plus at least six “regular” visits that are not preventive care.
My current doctors and pharmacy are all covered under Elect plan level - the plan levels below that aren’t appropriate for my care - so I’m trying to decide between the HDHP plan and a traditional plan. It’s just me this year; I think my W2 wage will be about $55k.
BAH.
If anyone is super bored and numbers-savvy - is there a very obvious choice? If not I will have time today to scribble it out and calculate but thought I’d plead in the meantime. I think mostly I’m emotionally resistant to giving up HSA contributions; I worked hard to be able to max those.
New plan options:
My loss prevention heart looks at the max cost on each and sees worst case scenario is lowest on SSO’s plan. Also you aren’t required to leave the country to avoid the possible $14K (!!) of OOP in Scenario 1. Which really isn’t even the worst case - there’s no guarantee the new plan through your job won’t have an even higher OOP max starting in August. What’s the legal max OOP under the ACA?
Oh yea, my drug costs alone would hit the Family Out of Pocket Maximum in 2 weeks for SSO. But SSO doesn’t really use health care other than stuff that the deductible doesn’t apply to anyway (checkups)
Other downside would be that SSO can’t use an HDHP with the plan that makes sense for me which means no HSA savings.
$8,550 for 2021. I think because it’s an Aug - Aug plan year, the 2021 rules will be required. My company is growing right now so I suspect they will add more than the 2 plan options we have this year, next year, especially as it is part of our equity plan.
Fidelity has an easy and free HSA account that I rolled my old HSA into that allows for investment of 100% of contributions. I don’t know that I can help with the rest of it, but there’s that!
