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Health Insurance as Employee Benefit

b2bailey

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Been awhile since I was employed full time. Wondering what companies provide today.
I would expect a company to provide health insurance to employee at no cost. What are they doing in regard to family coverage? Does employee share the cost?
 

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I would expect a company to provide health insurance to employee at no cost.
I think you will find your expectations do not match reality. What I have seen in general is that the company provides a portion of the cost for the employee, and the rest is up to them. Family coverage is available, but the full or very close to full additional cost is the responsibility of the employee.

Kurt
 

VacationForever

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Every company is different. It all has to do with how affordable it is for the employer. Some don't offer, for those that offer, it can be anything from 0 to 80% or more for employees' share of cost, and varies with age band. Employers may be generous with employees coverage but have employees pay 100% for family members. Every industry has its own practice and each employer wants to be competitive with other employers in the same industry for labor.
 
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WinniWoman

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Been awhile since I was employed full time. Wondering what companies provide today.
I would expect a company to provide health insurance to employee at no cost. What are they doing in regard to family coverage? Does employee share the cost?

Where have you been? LOL! Good luck finding an employer that pays for most or all of your health insurance. There might be some that will cover the employee- or at least most of it- but not the family. And be prepared for huge deductibles- so it feels like you don't even have insurance.
 

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I'm now retired, but at the time I retired from a Fortune 500 company, my share of family coverage was about $750 per month. The coverage was great, though. The deductible was $250 per person or $500 for the family. The out-of-pocket max was $1500 per person or $3000 for the family.
 

Luanne

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In my almost 40 year working life I never worked for a company that fully paid for health insurance. My older dd is working for a company where her premiums are paid by her employer, but she has once choice and that is Kaiser.
 

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My company pays our employees at 100%. Family is up to them. The cost of insurance tripled after the “Affordable” Care Act. Imagine what our monthly bill is for 40 people.
 

VacationForever

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I'm now retired, but at the time I retired from a Fortune 500 company, my share of family coverage was about $750 per month. The coverage was great, though. The deductible was $250 per person or $500 for the family. The out-of-pocket max was $1500 per person or $3000 for the family.
That has to be before ACA. All max out of pocket have gone up with higher premiums at the same time.
 

bogey21

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In my almost 40 year working life I never worked for a company that fully paid for health insurance. My older dd is working for a company where her premiums are paid by her employer, but she has once choice and that is Kaiser.

I'm going back a long time here but my recollection is that my ex-wife's Father worked for Fortune 500 Company who I choose not to name. He was a fork lift driver. Not only was his Health Insurance 100% free but when he retired he had free Health Insurance for life. My recollection is that he worked for this company from roughly 1945 to around 1975...

George
 

Passepartout

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All employers have a different take on this, but from what I see/hear/read, they offer the minimal amount of heath insurance coverage they can in their industry and location to attract the level of employees they want.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the medical field seems to offer the best coverage.

Last week I had occasion to chat with a couple of nice middle-aged folks at our hospital who push wheelchairs with patients to/from rooms to various tests/procedures in the hospital. They simply worked there for the insurance. One told me that his 'regular' job paid more in 2 hours than a week working at the hospital, but offered no insurance. The other lady had been a homemaker to a self-employed man. She had never paid into Social Security/Medicare, so so pushed wheelchairs for some income and the insurance. Both told me that they walked 8-15 miles a day and had never been in better physical condition.

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presley

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The job I recently left gave me $150./month reimbursement if I could prove I had insurance. My insurance is over $500./month for just myself.

One of my daughters had 50% paid by her employer.

My other daughter gets $200. taken out of her check each month for her insurance which includes really good coverage for medical, dental and vision.

So, it depends on where you work. Normally, you'll pay about 75%-100% of your family's premiums. Often you can find cheaper insurance on your own and not through the job.
 

klpca

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My company pays our employees at 100%. Family is up to them. The cost of insurance tripled after the “Affordable” Care Act. Imagine what our monthly bill is for 40 people.
That seems so odd. I didn't see any premium increases close to that with any of my clients. Did the coverage change significantly too? Or did you mean the cost of the family coverage was what tripled?

I work in a small business and have no coverage whatsoever. My husband's company pays most of our coverage - we pay a few hundred a month. His former employer paid 100%. So it's a total crapshoot.
 

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That seems so odd. I didn't see any premium increases close to that with any of my clients. Did the coverage change significantly too? Or did you mean the cost of the family coverage was what tripled?

I work in a small business and have no coverage whatsoever. My husband's company pays most of our coverage - we pay a few hundred a month. His former employer paid 100%. So it's a total crapshoot.

My personal premium (California) went from about $235 a month to $600 now. Our employees are in a range based on age. If our people can get insurance via a spouse, we give them a little extra in their check since we don't have to pay it.
 

rapmarks

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Can’t remember exactly, but I believe that after teaching twenty years in the school district, the family plan was paid by the district. Totally forgot this until this thread.
 

PigsDad

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Not only was his Health Insurance 100% free but when he retired he had free Health Insurance for life. My recollection is that he worked for this company from roughly 1945 to around 1975...
Things have changed in the 44 years since he retired. Not sure if any Fortune 500 companies pay full medical any more -- it would be a rarity.

Kurt
 

klpca

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My personal premium (California) went from about $235 a month to $600 now. Our employees are in a range based on age. If our people can get insurance via a spouse, we give them a little extra in their check since we don't have to pay it.
Wow. That's crazy. I know that in our personal situation the amount reported on our W2 by my husband's employer has been in the 20-22k range for as long as I can remember, but of course that info wasn't reported before 2008ish.
 

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One of the reasons I chose the job offer from my Fortune 500 employer out of college was they included full family medical coverage. But that was back in 1970. As medical insurance costs started their meteoric rise (late 80s? early 90s?) they set a cap on what they would pay, which was twice the then-current level. In a few years when that level was reached, the employee made up the difference via payroll deduction.
 

Luanne

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I'm going back a long time here but my recollection is that my ex-wife's Father worked for Fortune 500 Company who I choose not to name. He was a fork lift driver. Not only was his Health Insurance 100% free but when he retired he had free Health Insurance for life. My recollection is that he worked for this company from roughly 1945 to around 1975...

George
I worked for "the phone company" (changed names over the years, but when I retired it was AT&T) for 30 years starting in 1980. Even back then the company did not pay 100% of the medical premiums. But I had decent coverage for myself, and then for my family when they came along, and I wasn't going broke paying for it. When I retired I continued to get health insurance for myself and my family at a decent rate. However, those employees that came in after I did, and I don't know when the change was made, got nothing at retirement.
 

CalGalTraveler

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We pay about $20 - $22k a year in healthcare premiums for a family of 4 on my spouse's healthcare account. There is a subsidy by the his small business employer on top of that. If we were paying PPO instead of Kaiser HMO it would be double that. We also pay about $2500/year in copays. It's a significant amount of money.

I worked for a F500 for many years but there still was a premium and copay. Never 100%.

The new controversial California AB5 (corrected) ruling which just was signed will screw small independent contractors healthcare-wise. Although it is designed to take care of the low paid workers at Uber and Lyft and companies that should deem certain low paid workers as employees that were exploiting the law. The new law is poorly written and throws the baby out with the bath water.

There are many professional independents contractors in areas such as consulting who will be denied healthcare benefits and enhanced retirement benefits because they won't be able to qualify as a small business anymore. The employer will limit such workers to fewer hours to prevent access to healthcare and retirement benefits and will pay them less that what they would earn as an independent. What a mess.
 
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My parents had their babies during the 50s and 60s (I'm the youngest of 5). I remember hearing them say that health insurance back then often didn't cover babies until they were 10 days old. So parents truly prayed that nothing went wrong with their newborns those first few days. Really hard to believe that THAT wasn't so long ago!
 

Luanne

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My parents had their babies during the 50s and 60s (I'm the youngest of 5). I remember hearing them say that health insurance back then often didn't cover babies until they were 10 days old. So parents truly prayed that nothing went wrong with their newborns those first few days. Really hard to believe that THAT wasn't so long ago!
Just a side story. I was born in 1950. My parents were living in Tokyo (Dad was working for the Army as part of the reconstruction team). When Mom got pregnant the Korean War was starting to break out and all of the American doctors were leaving. Mom didn't want her first child delivered by a Japanese midwife so my parents came back to the U.S. According to Mom's story when she told her OB/GYN that she could have had her baby for free if she stayed in Japan the doctor didn't charge her. However I feel the hospital probably wasn't as generous. :)
 

Cornell

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Just a side story. I was born in 1950. My parents were living in Tokyo (Dad was working for the Army as part of the reconstruction team). When Mom got pregnant the Korean War was starting to break out and all of the American doctors were leaving. Mom didn't want her first child delivered by a Japanese midwife so my parents came back to the U.S. According to Mom's story when she told her OB/GYN that she could have had her baby for free if she stayed in Japan the doctor didn't charge her. However I feel the hospital probably wasn't as generous. :)
I love this story. My father was born in 1931. My grandparents were immigrants from Germany had truly had no money at that time. My grandfather bartered with the doctor and did carpentry work for the doc as payment for delivering my father.
 

VacationForever

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The new controversial California SB5 ruling which just was signed will screw small independent contractors healthcare-wise. Although it is designed to take care of the low paid workers at Uber and Lyft and companies that should deem certain low paid workers as employees that were exploiting the law. The new law is poorly written and throws the baby out with the bath water.

There are many professional independents contractors in areas such as consulting who will be denied healthcare benefits and enhanced retirement benefits because they won't be able to qualify as a small business anymore. The employer will limit such workers to fewer hours to prevent access to healthcare and retirement benefits and will pay them less that what they would earn as an independent. What a mess.

I searched for SB5 and it is a different bill -
Senate Passes SB 5 to Provide Sustainable, Ongoing Funding to Build Affordable Housing

Will you please send a link to the bill/law that you mentioned? I spent the past decade in reading and understanding CA new bills and laws and my interest has not waned even though we are now retired and no longer need to deal with HR and legal stuff.
 
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