bamsphd
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2005
- Messages
- 337
Looks like in the third example you are having both of you hit the deductible for the bronze case instead of just one of you.
That bronze plan has a "family medical deductible" of $11,000 but not a separate lower "individual medical deductible." So in essence, yes, we both hit the deductible in that case. The Silver HSA plan has a "family medical deductible" of only $5000.
Even more importantly they also tweak the OOP max which is $12,700 for all the family bronze plans, but $8,000 for the family Silver HSA plan, and $7,000 for the family Gold non-HSA plan. So if hitting the OOP max is a concern one would want to pay an extra $1,538 in premiums for the Silver HSA plan to drop the OOP max by $4,700.
As far as I can tell for us as a couple in my state, the pessimist's clear choice family plan is the Silver HSA plan with an $8,000 OOP max, plus $8,702 in unsubsidized premiums, minus whatever tax/subsidy advantage the HSA provides.
Based on reading on the ER forum, I've decided I also need to further explore getting two individual policies instead. My initial pass eliminated them because the unsubsidized premiums would be more than a thousand dollars greater than a family plan. However, I don't think I adequately allowed for the lower individual deductibles and OOP max values. The biggest other downside of individual plans is that then we would definitely need two separate HSA accounts which would be a bit of a hassle.