How Much Should Health Insurance Be Costing Me And My Family Of 4?
I am self employed and have a wife and two kids. The current health insurance carrier seems to help me with minumum of coverage of doctors visits. I took my kids to get school physicals. blood pressure checks, weight checks and a few minutes cost me 120.00 per physical. IS THIS RIGHT. I live in Ohio near cleveland, Can anyone give me some pointers
on August 6th, 2009 at 11:34 am
It really depends on what your plan allows. For example, there are some plans that offer wellness benefits (i.e. they will allow physicals up to a certain dollar amt. once a year). Also, if any member of your family has any pre-existing conditions, you may be paying more to have coverage for those conditions.
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It would be in your best interest to shop around and get some quotes to find out if you’re being ripped off. And of course, with any type of insurance, the amount of your premium depends on your copays and deductibles. Also, you do NOT want a discount plan. Those are the worst. Usually, the doctors that accept those are in the worst areas of town, plus, and you get what you pay for, so to speak (discount plan, discount service, discount treatment, etc.).
Hope that helps.
on August 6th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Health insurance should be costing you and your family between $800 and $1100 per month, for a low/no deductible plan.
That price is about right, for physicals.
on August 6th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Try a discount medical plan. With this plan you would have probably paid $60 per kid instead of $120. One thing people don’t realize is that healthcare make their money off the self pay. That is why the rates for self pay is so high. they don’t make money off of the insured because the insurance company is only going to pay them a percentage off the customary fee. View website below. It seems to me a discount medical plan would be best for you. You don’t want your profits to go to paying insurance premium. You can get full family coverage for $59.95 a month.
on August 6th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Better speak to agent
on August 6th, 2009 at 11:34 am
There’s really no way to say what health insurance for a family of 4 should be costing you. It’s like asking how much a car will cost… even if you’re looking at two 1968 muscle cars, there’s a HUGE difference in the price of the one that someone’s babied and displays on the auto show circuit and the one somebody’s just hauled out of a junk yard.
As for the cost of physicals, that’s actually a little low in my opinion. But this is a big part of the problem of why people don’t understand their health insurance costs. People who have low (or no) deductibles and fixed copayments (typically also very low) for doctor’s visits don’t associate the fact that the insurance company may very well be shelling out an additional $50 – 250 PER VISIT for each of these, depending on the nature of the visit.
Most people are too insulated from the real cost of the medical care, so they scream about the cost of their insurance. But their insurance rates keep going up because the same people who it only costs a $10 copay run to the doctor for every little sniffle DO run to the doctor for every little sniffle.
In fact, most people are also too insulated from the real cost of their health insurance, because the majority of the premium is paid by an employer. (I always laugh when people come in and tell me about how they’re paying “outrageous” amounts for their company health insurance, but they’re only contributing $63 every two weeks.)
Look, the fact is it’s all in the details. I’m a 36 year old diabetic (who happens to sell health insurance for a living) and I pay $450/month for a policy with a $1500 deductible. That’s just for me and that’s on a group plan. (A comparable individual plan would run me $681/month.)
If everyone in your family is healthy, you may be able to get a nice policy for under $500/month. If anyone has a serious health issue (even one that you may not consider to be a serious health issue), it will easily run you $500 for that person alone (and that’s with a high deductible, likely more — maybe a LOT more.) There’s just no way to tell you how much your plan should cost, because it’s based on your family’s health history.