Health Insurance hacks

How is this even possible. I worked for a company for 10yrs. My employer covered my health insurance and I had to pay for my kids. He took $968/month out of my check for my kids. I went self employed Jan 1st of this year. I called into the same company to get insurance for me and my kids. It cost me $655/month.

My wife gets her insurance thru employer and they pay 100% of hers. We looked at getting me and the kids put on her plan. They were going to take $2100/month out of her check.

No clue to what extent kids change it but I buy a quite decent plan for under $600 per month for me and my wife. Slightly worse plan through my employer costs double.

On a similar note I wanted a CAC scan this year, my insurance likely would not cover it because I am not old enough. Had they submitted it and I got denied out of pocket would have been $1400 (reflecting what they would have billed insurance) but cash price was around $125. I also have a prescription that I can pay about $10 cash for but if submitted through insurance they bill them over $100 and I pay a $20 copay. My pharmacy cant sell it to me cash because they know I have insurance so it violates their distribution agreement so I had it sent to another pharmacy where I dont have insurance on file and pay cash. Its all a goofy system.
 
That's what I meant with disaster level expenses.

If you are regularly exceeding the standard deduction with expenses that exceed 7.5% of your income, insurance might have been a good idea? [Of course this depends on how much into the standard deduction you are wirh mortgage interest etc]
True. But if have a premium of $500 a month that $6k a year. 7.5% on 60k earnings a year is $4,500, so you are still ahead by not paying premiums and only out of pocket, which is usually a lower cost anyway. $4500 really is not that hard to hit in healthcare expenses. Not that I want people to have the expense in the first place. There are enough ways to get yourself over the minimum deduction to itemize on taxes.

The tax system is a game, it sucks, but most people won’t research it or pay someone to get into the loopholes.
 
True. But if have a premium of $500 a month that $6k a year. 7.5% on 60k earnings a year is $4,500, so you are still ahead by not paying premiums and only out of pocket, which is usually a lower cost anyway. $4500 really is not that hard to hit in healthcare expenses. Not that I want people to have the expense in the first place. There are enough ways to get yourself over the minimum deduction to itemize on taxes.

The tax system is a game, it sucks, but most people won’t research it or pay someone to get into the loopholes.

I must be doing something wrong because I don't think I could afford a large enough mortgage (and pay large enough state taxes!) to hit standard deduction on a 60k income 🤔

But yes agreed that for someone generally not too unhealthy, lower income, but somehow at standard deduction paying out of pocket, taking the deduction, and not doing insurance may work out quite a bit better. [Tho, with lower income, marginal rates aren't all that high, so the real savings are from having medical expenses below insurance premiums, not the extra tax savings]
 
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