Health insurance costs decreased 30% year over year with this Inflation report
 

Great news!

With the current inflation report yesterday, the health care insurance had come down 30% year over year. . . woo hoo! where are you going to spend your savings?

and the weighting of health insurance in the CPI is 0.5% of the total annual cost for each capita, you a capita, me a capita. . so health insurance really isn't significant in the average cost of the consumer, aren't we lucky!

I look at reality, not reports. Just got our renewal notice and our health plan is no longer available and the suggested replacement is up over 50% and has significantly different coverage so an apples to apples comparison is very difficult. And our health insurance cost, premiums only and not including copayments and deductibles, is almost 20% of our annual expenses. It proves that published government reports are misleading and not worth the paper they are printed on.

Every response i have seen , excluding the fact based TOTV, has stated that there are huge year over year renewalcharges between 10 and 50%. Also US CPI weights health insurance at 0.5% of the total CPI. But hey, why spoil the year end rally party??

I prefer totally inept, and the change is now based on insurance companies retained earnings growth. WTF? That's the best they can do?
The process is inept because the insurance companies are not cooperating with basically a ton of contracted unique revenues, which they see no value in standardizing for government reporting and they also realize that if they do provide real data to the government, their golden goose will be cooked. . . .

totally inept and the problem is that misleading government statistics results in bad policy decisions at many different levels.

the good news is that MA raised the estate tax minimum asset value from $1.1M to $2.0M, so we just got some huge savings there.

No such reductions here in The Villages/Central FL!

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My Florida Blue Just notified me that as of January 1st 2024 my plan F Medicare supplement will go up by a little over 8%

The US government changed their inflation methodology for health insurance last month. That likely has something to do with the measurement.

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Of course they did, they are the fox watching the hen house. They are the biggest debtors on the planet, and pay over a trillion dollars a year in interest alone, without paying back a penny in principal. Why wouldn’t they manipulate the data to undermine reporting real inflation in an attempt to keep interest rates artificially low? Answer, because they can! We live in an economy that rewards irresponsible levels of debt and penalizes responsible savers. Not a good long term policy.

hmm, yeah, i know that, read post #3

My current insurance plan will cost less next year. But the out-of-pocket max will go up. It has no deductible. So I'll be paying $45 every time I go to my PCP, and $85 every time I go to a specialist. That's until I've spent $9,450. Insurance will pick up all covered costs after that. So basically - my hip replacement will cost me $9,450, if I end up needing it next year. The doctor said I was definitely a candidate last year but the cortisone shot was still working so I put it off. The shot wore off, and the pain is only unmanageable once in awhile, not every day. So I might be stuck paying more for normal services this year - and then NEXT year spend another $9,450 for the hip replacement.

It's pretty sad when you finally get to the point when you're done working for a living, and spend most of your time WISHING you were in enough pain to need surgery.

If you can pass underwriting, or if you don't need to go through underwriting, you may be better off switching to Plan G, or even Plan N. Those plans have the potential for lower increases each year. Also, in the case of Plan G, you may pay less overall than Plan F because the only difference is the $240 deductible and the difference in premiums (Plan G is less than Plan F) is typically greater than the deductible.

I hear ya, I need a left knee replacement and bone spurs ground out of my shoulder, but the super high deductible and max out of pocket make the procedures very expensive. Grinning and bearing the pain a little longer until I’m eligible for Medicare. Once eligible, I will get a Medigap policy (the cost of Medicare part b and a good Medigap supplemental plan and part d prescription plan will all be way cheaper than my current high deductible Obamacare plan) and get both surgeries done and only have to pay the approximately $245 annual deductible. I don’t want to get any older, but becoming eligible for Medicare will definitely help ease the pain.

Medical costs/insurance always goes up. The fools who pay, pay for those who don't. There are always fewer fools every year.