Healthcare Premiums in 2017

I just received an informational packet from my healthcare provider, HealthPartners.  If I do not change anything about my plan, the premium will increase from $192.15 to $296.01 / month.  That’s a a 54% increase!  Just to really sweeten the deal, there is no national coverage, at all.  So unless I stay in the metro area, I’ll be paying the ‘out-of-network’ expenses on anything I need to have done.  Not like I wouldn’t be paying for all of it anyways, this is a plan with a $6,000-or-so deductible, which essentially means it doesn’t pay for anything unless you’re ridiculously sick.

If I could raise my hourly rate by 54% each year, then I wouldn’t mind.  But that kind of an increase on a legally-mandated expense is a bit outrageous.

So long as I earn less than about $140,000 per year, I’m better off paying the 2.5% fine instead of buying health insurance.  Since I know I’m not going to be making more than $140,000 in 2017, I see no reason to buy health insurance.

I will of course look for cheaper options and see what else I can do, but this is getting crazy.  The lack of any kind of national coverage is really disturbing because I’m not going to be sitting around in the MN metro all the time.  Hopefully some better options will open up once the marketplace opens November 1st.

2 thoughts on “Healthcare Premiums in 2017”

  1. “I’m better off paying the 2.5% fine” Hold on there keemosabi; what about the proverbial bus thats sure to hit you. Your bills could go , well; catastrophic.

    1. Understood, which is why I’ll be looking for a “catastrophic”-only plan. It’s just particularly infuriating when I have to spend such a high amount of my monthly budget on a service that I don’t use, and even if I do try to use it for something it doesn’t actually *pay* for anything because the deductible is so high.

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