Adding child to Insurance - what are your plans?

[midwest07]

I was looking at the costs to add one child to my company's health plan.  I am currently on the plan, it's a PPO, and the price is very reasonable.  My husband is on an individual plan (way cheaper than his company's plan) that is a bit more than mine, it's also a PPO.  Together we are paying about $330/month currently.

Here are options I am considering, and wanted to see what others are looking at.

1.  All of us do the family plan at my office - PP ($1000/2000). The cost would be about 4 times (!!!) what H and I are paying in our current set-up.  I am just thinking the one benefit is that office visits are covered and some other costs are covered under a PPO before you hit the deductible, and a baby in the first year is likely to have a lot of costs.

2.  All of us do the family plan at my office - High Deductible Plan ($2600/$5200).  The cost for a family is only slightly more than we are currently paying.  The company seeds $1000 a year into the HSA as a benefit.  With the lower cost of this plan, we could actually pay in the entire remaining $4200 and still be paying less in premiums and HSA pay-in than just the premiums of the PPO.  Plus, hopefully we have some to keep rolling over each year.  My only concern is lots of doc visits for the baby, but I guess we just pay those out of the HSA.

3.  Put the baby on an individual plan like my H.  I have no idea of cost or how hard this is to get.

Other relevant info - we both have FSAs through work.  So it seems there are plenty of places to put the medical funds pre-tax to have available for the high deductible plan.  H and I are healthy, no chronic conditions, except infertility (which is OOP anyway).

Is it obvious to go with the HDP??

[Susie]

In your case I might do the HDP. It seems like the best deal.

We are doing a family PPO plan through Calvin's employer once Hobbes is born, but we're already on a two-adult PPO with them so it won't be a huge change. He works for the local government and has better health insurance offerings than most, and definitely way better than my small firm can offer.

[Koala]

Ditto Susie.  I would also do the High Deductible plan in your case.

DH and I are already on DH's company's EPO plan.  We will just change it to a family plan when the babies are born.  We are pretty lucky with our insurance situation. 

[boiler717]

I would do 2. Sure you will have sick visits but all the preventive care visits should be covered at $0.

[ebeth]

We're just going to add the baby to my HDHP at work. We are both already on it and max out our HSA contributions. I did the math and it works out to about the same cost between premiums and deductibles as the PPO plan. The upside is that there's an HSA that is our money to keep if we don't use it.

Even on my HDHP preventive visits are covered 100%. So there shouldn't be an OOP cost for the baby's well child visits. We will probably have to pay something for the vaccines themselves, but at that point we will have met our deductible and will be paying the co insurance rate anyway (if we don't hit our OOP max with the delivery and hospital stay and I don't think we will).

So even with this pregnancy, L&D, and an ER visit for H this calendar year (he's fine, just some stitches), I think the HDHP has worked out well for us. I really like it. The only way I'd go to PPO is if baby has some kind of medical condition or if I have some complications post birth that will require extended treatment

[Kit]

H and I are both on my insurance, so I'll add baby to that plan. H's company is smaller so his insurance is super expensive.

Mine is pricey too, but cheaper than his. The shitty part is, if his insurance wasn't so expensive, I could probably be a SAHM.

[jd15]

we already have a family plan through dh's work and will just add baby #3 to that.

is there an option at your work to do parent+child? at mine we have individual, parent+child and family (which also includes 2 spouses)...if that's not an option i would do option #2.

[ellipsis]

If I were you, I'd do the HDP and then max out your HSA contributions. The $1000 from your employer is awesome, and the HSA money you get to keep until you need it, even if that is 20 years from now.

Right now H and I are on separate HDPs through our respective employers. We will add baby to his plan and then re-evaluate once open enrollment begins a month or two after she's here (and likely all go to his employer's plan anyway).

[MrsMB]

DH is self-employed and has his own insurance policy. He has a great B.C.B.S plan! It was soo expensive to add him to my work plan while trying to pay off debt. (I'll be done in August!)So we actually saved money getting him his own plan.

I work for a very small non-profit and the premiums are high for my area. I have a HD plan with them currently for pennies just to cover myself. When you add a spouse or child, the rates increase over 7 times the amount to cover a single employee.

SO...

We'll add the baby to my HD plan in January (debt will be paid off and I can afford the extra $$$) while DH pays his individual premium. Come September, we'll have the entire family back on my plan.

[lindsaymg]

I would totally go with option 2. This is what we are doing currently for our family and there is no increase to go from one child to two so we are staying put. We are both on my office's HDHP because my insurance is a lot better than his and I have always carried the kiddo on mine regardless of where H worked.

[Deleted]

I made a detailed spreadsheet with premium + max oop costs to compare each plan. What we ended up doing was moving to my h's insurance for a lower premium but a high max oop. I don't think you can have both an FSA and an HSA though. Also, the baby has a lot of visits the first year but those are mostly well visits and should be covered 100% and not included in the deductible.

[magdala]

Make sure you look at the well baby visits and cost of immunizations. DH & I each had individual plans before DD was born. That was the cheapest option and we could each keep our existing doctors. When we needed the family plan (three individuals was not available), his family plan cost more out of pocket but covered so much more. His plan covered all well baby visits with no copay whereas mine required a $25 copay per well baby visit.