148 votes
Rank43
Idea#1232
This option needs to be made available to federal employee health insurance. It's available now for vision and dental so why not for health?
It would lower the cost to employees and ultimately the government.
Tags: health insurance premiums self + one savings
The insurance system is based on an old assumption that each husband and wife will eventually have kids and health care costs will be for 3 or more persons for around 20 years or so. Demographic patterns have changed over the years with many couples remaining childless and also with people living longer, even those couples that do have children live many years afterward with only two persons.
I have not had children. For 22 years, I have been paying for family insurance for just my husband and myself. This is much more expensive than it would have been if I could just have chosen self plus one all of these years. We have much higher minimum amounts (based on 3 or more people in the household, rather than our actual 2)we have to pay ourselves each January before the insurance kicks in and unnecessarily high floors (again based on 3 or more people in the household, rather than our 2)on how much we have to pay out ourselves on copays and other charges before the insurance takes over all costs.
This happens to couples where one works for the federal government and claims a non-fed spouse as a dependent in the FEHB system. Couples where both are feds have the option of saving money by each of them signing up individually for their own health plans, thus avoiding the forced "family option" that bases charges on 3 or more persons in the household.
The demographics have changed. It's time to review the impact of this old model on families today and offer a self + one option.
Very nicely written. Thank you.
You do realize, of course, that this would make the insurance for the younger families with children that much more unaffordable? Actually, when it comes to health care costs, we should rethink our whole system. We need a National Health Insurance, covering everyone and paid for by everyone. No American should have to depend on anyone else for their health insurance. Every American needs to be covered from birth on their own accord. We could balance the federal budget overnight simply by scrapping Medicare; Medicaid; the VA health system; hundreds of federally-funded clinics and replace it all with a simple, affordable, and more importantly SELF-SUSTAINING National Health Insurance program. Even insurance companies who would suffer economic damage would be compensated with some of the monies that are now held in trusts, including their own. $5000 + yearly indemnity per person could be achieved with a 4% national sales tax on goods and services (everybody helps pay for it that way); 3% payroll tax (employee 3%/employer 3%); and a 4% corporate EBITA tax. Imagine the new flexibility it would give workers. Many of our social problems would be moot because it all usually comes down to health care in one way or another. Nobody has ever been able to convince me that it isn't the most effectiove and efficient way to cover all Americans. If you want to ensure all Americans are insured, insure all Americans.
Totally agree with this. I've never understood this disparity. Why should my spouse/one child pay the same amount as a husband/wife/five children?
I AGREE with this! I'm a single parent with one child. I pay for the FAMILY program, which could include another adult and other children (dependents).
I too agree with this idea. I am married and all of my children are grown, yet I pay the same rate as someone with children at home.
