Medical Insurance - What Are You Doing? - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Russ Ranger · RV-Dreams Family Member

Medical Insurance - What Are You Doing?

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

As the options vary a lot by state, it's also important to include your state of domicile.

We're both domiciled in Florida (Clay County) and are in our early 40s, and have an individual plan through Assurant that is ACA compatible. It's a high deductible 'bronze' level plan ($5500 deductible each) on a PPO network that is fairly nationwide (critical point for RVers). We're paying $450/month for our plan (both of us together).

In addition to Howard's great article overviewing the ACA, here is our article that overviews the specific considerations us RVers have when selecting health insurance and navigating healthcare:

www.technomadia.com/healthcare

- Cherie

Russ Ranger · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thank you Cherie,

You are right, the state of domicile is important to know as 17 states have their own plans.

We are from Washington state.

I admire your writing and willingness to share with the RV community. Could you please explain your thought process in picking a Bronze level plan. I assume we will be faced with picking later this year, I know your answer with help many of us.

I love the opening paragraph of your article. It is a good read for everyone.

"No matter how you look at it, healthcare, and specifically health insurance, is a headache. The US healthcare system, for all of its advancements, is painfully expensive and a complicated mess."

-- Edited by Russ Ranger on Saturday 25th of January 2014 12:23:09 PM

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

Russ Ranger wrote:
Could you please explain your thought process in picking a Bronze level plan. I assume we will be faced with picking later this year, I know your answer with help many of us.

I should add that we have a HSA attached to our plan, so that limits us to high deductible plans. Our options are Bronze or Silver to meet the requirements, and there's only a $2k difference between the deductibles, but a $420 (each) difference each year in premiums.

At our age and health status, our risk is lower of actually meeting our deductible in any given year. So instead we prefer to save on the premiums (which becomes the insurance company's) and keep our HSA (which stays our money until needed) funded. We've had these plans for over 5 years now, so we've won that gamble and have come out ahead so far.

And in the grand scheme of things, if something major came up that we needed the insurance - we're probably looking at a substantial bill where there's really not much difference between a $3500 or $5500 deductible. In either case, we've hopefully shielded ourselves from a potentially 6 figured medical bill.

- Cherie

jrzygrl64 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Cherie,

Do you mind if I ask if the amount you said you are paying, $450 a month for the 2 of you includes any subsidy or is that the full amount before a subsidy?

I am going to read Howard and Lindas article and also yours when I get time later.

Thanks!

Kelly

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our plan is not through the exchange, so that is without subsidies. We knew our plan was nomad and ACA compatible - and didn't want to switch it up this first year out. We'll see how things go - both for exchange options and how our income levels end up (being self employed, our income can fluctuate widely from year to year), to see if it's worthwhile switching to an exchange run plan.

- Cherie

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

We were fortunate to have our health insurance paid by our former employer as part of our retirement package. When we became Medicare eligible, it became our secondary (medigap) insurance. What ever Medicare doesn't pay (but approves) our secondary insurance covers and thus we pay nothing except for our co-pay for prescriptions.

Barb

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are in a group plan out of Washington, and yes we are lucky that way. We had open enrollement last July, too early to sign up for the new plans. This July we will have another open enrollment and will go to the Washington State insurance exchange (ACA) and do some compares, but for now we are in a group plan.

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

I have a BCBS ACA plan off the exchange. Residency TX. It is a PPO and the network is wide enough it is not an issue. I "qualify" for a subsidy based on our MAGI for 2012, but I probably will not for this year.

-- Edited by Jack Mayer on Monday 27th of January 2014 09:54:02 AM

Russ Ranger · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thank you to Cherie, Barb, Bill & Jack,

I appreciate your willingness to share your personal information. Cherie & Bill, I agree with your plan to wait a year and review the ACA plan in 2014. Like you I was unwilling to change plans until things had shaken down with the new system.

Perhaps we will all have a clearer picture of our options by the end of 2014.

If anyone else is willing to share there experience or plans it can only help us all in the RV community to make our future plans.

The Hensons · RV-Dreams Family Member

We also have a BCBS of TX PPO plan off the exchange which we had before ACA hit. Our premium for a family of 3 (ages 41, 36, 6) is $294 with a $5k/10k deductible. We're one of the lucky few that did not get hit with a large rate increase.

I see in your signature you spend half the year in Mexico. What is your healthcare access like in Mazatlan? You might want to combine a travel health insurance plan with a high deductible plan.

At your ages, TX rates are lower when comparing to FL and SD. That might change in 2015 but I doubt it.

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

Finally Medicare Disability.....

azrving · RV-Dreams Family Member

Russ Ranger wrote:
What are you personally doing for medical insurance? Or what will you do when you hit the road?
As I have read various threads the biggest concern for many people is medical insurance in their new RV lifestyle. We can all agree that changes have happened in the last year and many things are now different and will continue to evolve. News stories are all over the board in their coverage and it is difficult if not impossible to know where the truth lies.
I am hoping to gain an RV'ers perspective for our future.
Now this subject could quickly go sideways and our moderators would have to step in, if it went political. So please no politics, as Joe Friday said, "Just the facts ,ma'am."
Please share only your personal situation and what you are doing.
The reason I am interested is that we are on COBRA for 18 months following my wife's retirement. Our Cobra will expire in 12 months and we will need to change to something else.
Here's our situation: Me-62, Wife-60 retired early and have been on the road 7 months. Current medical insurance - Private Insurance thru COBRA thru 2014 - Group Health Insurance - HMO. Cost - $1,130 per month. What's next - ?????
I know each person is different and their needs will vary. What I am hoping to find is some real world information and data. I've got 12 months to make my choice. By the way Howards write-up on the ACA (Obamacare) is the clearest explanation I have read, anywhere. If you have not read it you are missing one of the "jewels" on this web site.
Please, please, please - no politics, just the facts, ma'am.

Russ Ranger,

Thank you for starting this topic! I have read Howard's write-up on Obamacare and I still have a lot of questions/fears before signing up on the ACA. My biggest fear being the lack of security on the website, many website professionals still say your personal info isn't safe on the Obamacare website so I haven't punched my personal info into the ACA yet.

I lost my BCBS when I left the Ford Dealership back in 1995 and my entire family has been uninsured ever since the 18 months of Cobra ran out. I ran my own business from 1995-2006 and the rates were too high for family coverage so I purchased really good "30 year term life insurance" for my wife and I and we had riders on there for the children. I did take out a Catastrophic Illness/Injury Policy too but our savings and assets would have been long wiped out before it kicked in. While the children were in school we purchased accident insurance through the school that covered them 24/7, it was really a great deal for the coverage.

I guess we have been very fortunate, we are all pretty healthy and there have been no hospital visits for any of us since we lost our insurance in 1995. wink We did still go to the local physician (town doctor) for colds, flu, broken bones, etc. but we were never billed for the office visits or the medicine if we needed it. We worked on the barter system, I kept all of the doctor's car, trucks, tractors, etc. running and he kept all of us running. biggrin I really got the worst end of that deal because he had more mechanical issues than we had human issues...LOL.

The last 5 years we worked for a corporation out of California that wouldn't provide health coverage for their AZ employees but did for their CA employees. They were able to do this by leasing their AZ employees from staffing company located in Phoenix, AZ. We had sorry dental & vision coverage but that was it. We left that company in April of 2013 to prepare for our full-time lifestyle and because the owner of the company told all of us full time employees that we would be cut back to part time and that they would no longer offer full time employment. I asked her if this was due to the ACA and she that was her main reason for cutting back so she could avoid the cost of complying with the ACA. Since we were leased employees, I guess the staffing company was going to pass on some of the cost of insurance to the corporation.

Not sure what we are going to do when we hit the road full-time so I will be following this topic in hopes of finding something that will work for us. I went to http://www.healthsherpa.com/ because it doesn't require any personal info such as SSN and according to their site we are eligible for free medical through the state of AZ since we don't have any income coming in but I don't feel right doing that since we have money in savings and plenty of assets too. I'm afraid (not to be political) that the ACA is going to be a lot like most other government programs, it's going to reward people for not trying to get a job by giving them free/subsidized housing, food, & healthcare....I hope I'm wrong.

We are not looking for free coverage, just affordable coverage.

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sometimes if you look the coverage you have been paying for all along!

ACA will definitely have its flaws but....

you worked to pay into social security your whole life.... yet it runs out of funds
you dont have to work for welfare.....yet it has unlimited benefits and keeps being funded.

If you dont pay into a system you should not be able to benefit from it

-- Edited by Lucky Mike on Tuesday 4th of February 2014 02:08:14 PM

Russ Ranger · RV-Dreams Family Member

The Hensons wrote:

I see in your signature you spend half the year in Mexico. What is your healthcare access like in Mazatlan? You might want to combine a travel health insurance plan with a high deductible plan.

_________________________________
Yes, we are spending our first full winter in Mazatlan and enjoying the weather everyday. One of the reasons we picked Mazatlan was the availability of good health care here. We have an English speaking hospital (Sharp Hospital) that caters to the needs of 20,000 - 30,000 expats that live here. They will take our insurance and deal with the paperwork as needed.
Local doctors and medical services are cheap to say the least. Jokingly, I can report that our puppies first visit to the vet (290 pesos / $21.00 US) was more than a human visit to the doctor (250 pesos).
A personal experience was my knee replacement. I choose to have it done in the states and it was covered by our insurance plan (less deductible). In Mazatlan I would have paid 10% of the cost of having it done in the states. I will be looking hard at my options for the next knee.
In another thread I wrote about dental care in Mexico. Unbelievable savings are availably in Mexico.

Camper Chronicles · RV-Dreams Family Member

Technomadia wrote:
As the options vary a lot by state, it's also important to include your state of domicile.

We're both domiciled in Florida (Clay County) and are in our early 40s, and have an individual plan through Assurant that is ACA compatible. It's a high deductible 'bronze' level plan ($5500 deductible each) on a PPO network that is fairly nationwide (critical point for RVers). We're paying $450/month for our plan (both of us together).

In addition to Howard's great article overviewing the ACA, here is our article that overviews the specific considerations us RVers have when selecting health insurance and navigating healthcare:

www.technomadia.com/healthcare

- Cherie

Hi Cherie,

Looked at your site and the link for RVer Health Insurance . Fantastic site and thrilled to see he is going to present at the Tennessee rally. finally a site that goes state by state and lists the specific pros and cons. Just what I have been looking for.

0nTheRoad · RV-Dreams Community Member

We have our medical insurance through my past employer whom I retired from. We are full timers and our domicile is Florida, we are both under 65 and our premiums have gone up about 40% this year to ~$1,100/mo.

I went through registering for ACA (that's a book in itself, took almost 3 months to register) and the quotes we received were more expensive that what we are currently paying.

RunsWithScissors · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm on a bronze plan, available through the TX exchange - Blue Cross Blue Shield Basic 5. It's a multi-state plan with a high deductible ($3,750 in-network). I'm eligible for the subsidy, so my premium is less than $50/month.

Note that my plan is not HSA (Health Savings Account) eligible because prescription drugs are not subject to the deductible. This article explains how HSA's work, for those who might be interested: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/insurance/T027-C001-S003-contributing-to-a-health-savings-account-in-2014.html.

Sally

Workinrvers · RV-Dreams Family Member

Just FYI, we are currently domiciled in SD, found out today that the plan we selected off the ACA site has been terminated as of 1/31/14 due to us being fulltimer RVers. We are currently in Texas and looks like we will become "residents" here or Florida since SD offers no other options for a Nationwide plan on the exchange.

Phil

tibbar · RV-Dreams Family Member

I am late to this topic but here is some information.

Insurance bought in Texas through ACA website. Silver Cigna 1500 PPO plan with $400 deductible and $1150 out of pocket. Cost $125.60 a month for the 2 of us. Exact same plan on einsurance was $1149 a month. I am medicare eligible next year. I robbed the cradle so hubby won't have medicare for 6 years after I do. I don't know what 2015 insurance bills will look like, I expect they will be higher.

Kayakmom · RV-Dreams Community Member

We use Liberty Health Share. No "out-of-network" bs to worry about among other advantages that I won't go into (don't want to get accused of getting political.) About $425/month for our family of 6.

Glenn West · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our BCBS health insurance is nearly 900 and with dental roughly 1000. We are contemplating going with Liberty health Share. Can't say a lot about it on here since it is against the rules. Go to website to find out.