Kansas Insurance Broker - Questions about my personal Insurance

[lifeismylife76]

Hello friends. I am a Life/ Health Insurance Broker specializing in the senior market. Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplements, some burial/ life insurance, etc.

I am 42, with one child. What is a good quality plan? Is there anyone who actually knows their stuff who can help me? I have a special election period with my Marketplace Coverage until March. I have a hard time accepting the maximum out of pockets on all the plans I have seen for a reasonable price.

 

[adjusterjack]

Rule of thumb: The lower the premiums, the higher the out of pocket costs. The lower the out of pocket costs, the higher the premiums. Trying to out think that is a frustrating waste of time.

If you and your child are healthy, take the lowest premium plan you can find but put aside a cash fund to cover the out of pocket cost and don't touch the money for anything else. At least, that way, if neither of you get hospitalized (where you get the big co-pays) then you get to keep your money.

You might even consider using a tax deductible Health Savings Account for that money:

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p969.pdf

https://www.discoverybenefits.com/b...9-hsa-contribution-limits-released-by-the-irs

 

[lifeismylife76]

Why can’t I do an HSA then? Makes more sense to me!

 

[LostDollar]

Rick and friends trashed and blocked every post I made trying to get KS ACA info from other forum members so I can't give you any agent feedback.

(And I am speaking from the "outside of Johnson County" viewpoint. If you are KC Metro you will have to compare Medica and whatever the other KC carrier is.)

If you search Medica Connect, you'll see what I came up with on them last year.
(Connect is the name they give their Kansas plan.)

There are two Medica Connect HSA bronze plans, I recommended the higher priced one to my wife last year over the blue cross plans because Medica appeared to have a broader network than Blue.

Medica got a bigger price increase than Blue this year. (Our plan went up $110.)

Three notes I have about Medica Connect changes this year:
Medica Connect no longer has out of network coverage
Only select hospitals are Tier 1 preferred.
If the hospital is not a tier 1 hospital, only standard benefits apply.
The University of Kansas Health System is no longer in network.

I hope that Medica still has a little broader network than Blue and that the Mayo centers of excellence program will still apply to their policies.

edit-----
I did not ask about this this year, but last year the Blue and Medica plans-off exchange were exactly the same as the on exchange plans.

 

[LostDollar]

Here is an ACA information site:

ACA Signups

 

[LostDollar]

If you and your child are healthy, take the lowest premium plan you can find.....

For Kansas and Bronze plans that qualify for HSA, that may not be the wisest course of action. (I have not looked at silver and bronze plans, so I can't speak to them-other than to say that Kansas is one of the states where acasignups indicates silver plans are probably not a good deal.)

There are some carrier to carrier network variations. The premium differential between the "low cost-high deductible" bronze plan and the the "high cost-low deductible" bronze plan may be small enough that one wants to take the higher cost plan. And if one lives in the "Missouri" counties of Kansas but has a child going to college in Manhattan or Lawrence ("Kansas" counties of Kansas) Medica may turn out to be the best choice, regardless of its cost.

edit------
As I re-look at the Medica brochure for 2019, I see that the Kansas City Kansas counties group has been expanded from 2 to 8.

 

[Rob Lion]

Don't worry about it. ACA is probably going to get reworked again shortly with all the bad ruling against it

 

[Northeast Agent]

The ACA will probably be around until 2020, so the OP should enroll while it's still available. It's not like it's going away overnight.

 

[LostDollar]

Why can’t I do an HSA then? Makes more sense to me!

I was thinking about these issues again today because of some "contention" in another thread and realized my other comments only gave you half the solutions if you choose an HSA.

You can read some stuff about HSA accounts (with some commentary from an agent about HSA plans too) here:
https://insurance-forums.com/community/threads/when-to-study-out-hsa-options.92260/

At a site called depositaccounts dot com, if you put HSA accounts in the search box, one of the options you will be presented is a listing of financial institutions and their HSA rates.

Comments on "perspective" on choices. Your preferences as to:

Banks or Credit Unions.
Local or National.

(And I figured it would be a couple of years before an account had enough money to worry about any "fancy" investments beyond the accessible savings cushion.)