If you are not covered by group health care coverage at work you have probably gone through sticker shock over the past decade as health insurance premiums soared out of control.
For small business owners one of the biggest challenges has been not only providing employee options but being able to afford basic coverage for their family as well.
I recently helped a friend search for coverage and was surprised to find that the top selling plan in our area had a $1000 deductible, 20% co-insurance,a $25 co-pay and still cost $769 /mo for a family of 4! I mentioned this to my insurance agent and he simply shrugged and said "That's the way all these plans are going".
Wow! I'm certainly glad that we switched to the combination of a High Deductible Insurance Plan (hdhp) and a Health Savings Account (HSA) a few years ago.
I did more research and found that there was a HSA compatible plan that had a $5000 deductible but then had 0% co-insurance and this plan saved him $294 per month so it would only take a bit over 1 year to save the amount of the co-pay difference.
If he opened a Health Savings Account to go along with his HDHP then he could simply put the $294 he saves each month into the HSA and let it accumulate until a member of his family needs medical attention.
If you have children who are often sick during the school year it may be beneficial to start your plan right after flu season ends so you have a few months for your balance to grow.
The one down side of an HSA is that you can only use it after you have deposited enough money in it to cover the expense.
This is slightly different than the FSA plans that many people use at work.
However, the big benefit of the HSA is that any money not used will rollover to the next calendar year so your balance can keep growing.
My wife and I now have more than twice the money available to cover our deductible and have used our HSA to cover other health care needs such as glasses, dental procedures and even paid for our daughter's braces! In addition, it's now required that HSA compatible High Deductible Health Plans provide routine annual physicals, paps and mammograms so we actually have a higher quality of health care than we did in the past.
At the time we got our HSA I hadn't had an annual physical before, now I have them once a year.
If you are running into sticker shock searching for health insurance coverage, make sure you explore the HSA / HDHP combination as it can drastically reduce your long term health care costs.
For small business owners one of the biggest challenges has been not only providing employee options but being able to afford basic coverage for their family as well.
I recently helped a friend search for coverage and was surprised to find that the top selling plan in our area had a $1000 deductible, 20% co-insurance,a $25 co-pay and still cost $769 /mo for a family of 4! I mentioned this to my insurance agent and he simply shrugged and said "That's the way all these plans are going".
Wow! I'm certainly glad that we switched to the combination of a High Deductible Insurance Plan (hdhp) and a Health Savings Account (HSA) a few years ago.
I did more research and found that there was a HSA compatible plan that had a $5000 deductible but then had 0% co-insurance and this plan saved him $294 per month so it would only take a bit over 1 year to save the amount of the co-pay difference.
If he opened a Health Savings Account to go along with his HDHP then he could simply put the $294 he saves each month into the HSA and let it accumulate until a member of his family needs medical attention.
If you have children who are often sick during the school year it may be beneficial to start your plan right after flu season ends so you have a few months for your balance to grow.
The one down side of an HSA is that you can only use it after you have deposited enough money in it to cover the expense.
This is slightly different than the FSA plans that many people use at work.
However, the big benefit of the HSA is that any money not used will rollover to the next calendar year so your balance can keep growing.
My wife and I now have more than twice the money available to cover our deductible and have used our HSA to cover other health care needs such as glasses, dental procedures and even paid for our daughter's braces! In addition, it's now required that HSA compatible High Deductible Health Plans provide routine annual physicals, paps and mammograms so we actually have a higher quality of health care than we did in the past.
At the time we got our HSA I hadn't had an annual physical before, now I have them once a year.
If you are running into sticker shock searching for health insurance coverage, make sure you explore the HSA / HDHP combination as it can drastically reduce your long term health care costs.