
Ask HN: What percentage of your salary are you paying to health insurance? - sharemywin
I pay 17.6% of my salary to health insurance. And that doesn&#x27;t include my employers portion. Are there any start ups with solutions? Am I the only one?
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egberts5
We really cannot compare until we all give 4 sets of numbers:

1\. Amount your pay is docked for health premium;

2\. amount your employer pays for your share;

3\. total family deductible before insurance pay; and

4\. the percentage that your insurer will pay after hitting deductible.

Any thing short of that makes for poor comparative.

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cauterized
~1%. Not including employer's portion. Small non-startup company in NYC. High
deductible plan via TriNet.

Last place (small startup) was 0%. For the PPO. Smaller startup. Also TriNet.

Maybe the employment market for engineers is tighter in NY than SF? Or the
competition includes more traditional companies that are accustomed to fully
covering insurance? Or more company founders/execs, instead of being fresh out
of college, are older and have families and want their own insurance covered?

Or I'm a cheapskate and choose the cheap plan?

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pravda
There is no "employer's portion". It's all your portion!

Part of the money you earn gets redirected (tax-free) to the healthcare
industry.

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cauterized
Yes and no. I'm not getting that money either way, whether my employer decides
to spend it on my health insurance or not.

Regardless, the OP was discussing percent excluding the portion the employer
covers.

I'm not particularly interested in any particular discussion of why and how
the American health insurance industry is a clusterfuck. We all already know
that and the points would take all day to enumerate anyway.

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cylinder
People who think you are paying such a low amount -- you're not. Your employer
is paying it for you. That would have gone to salary instead. Check your W-2.

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kspaans
Is that like saying that payroll taxes that your employer pays would go into
your salary instead too?

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michael_fine
Depending on the relative elasticity of supply v demand, yeah.

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sharemywin
I'm also not part of the health exchange. And my deductible is 2.9% of my
salary. So, before the insurance company pays in 1 cent I'm expected to pay
20% of my salary to insurance. Something doesn't seem right about that. People
are on here are looking for problems to solve. Well, here's one that needs a
disruptive solution.

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Jtsummers
I don't understand. My deductible is also around 3% of my salary. But my
insurance company pays in a _lot_ before I hit that point. Appointments, lab
work, etc. are all partially covered, typically with a copay. GP costs me $20,
specialist costs me $30, x-rays cost around $50-200 depending on the number
and kind (and that's just the highest I've seen, I'm sure it can go higher).
But my health insurer (BCBS) pays at least that much for each of those.

I'd look for a new policy. I once was offered a terrible policy by a
contracting agency I worked for. It would've cost me around $10k/year, out of
pocket with BCBS was around $2k/year and offered _much_ better benefits (I was
around 25 at the time, ACA may have changed that baseline cost).

And to answer your question, I presently pay around 3.3% of my salary for
medical, dental, vision coverage (3 separate policies, vision is almost free
at ~$120/year, but I have terrible eyesight so the cost is worth it for me).

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sharemywin
I also have a family of 4. I fall into the worst possible category for
subsidizing. I make just over median income for salary. My employer is a small
business with lot of older workers. I have a family size of 4 which puts my in
the family category but juts barely. I don't use a lot of medical in the first
place.

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Jtsummers
Very different circumstances than yours, I see. I don't know what would happen
to my costs in the same situation, though I do know they'd go up quite a bit.

I still stand by my other point, your insurance should be paying _something_
before you hit your deductible. If it's not, you need a new plan.

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adviceadam
I work at a startup in SF. I get reimbursed 100% for my health insurance
costs, which includes dental and vision insurance as well. It's about $550 a
month, or $6600 a year.

We would have a company plan, but we're small enough as to where it's more
cost effective to reimburse everyone.

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stannol
Like most people in Germany I pay 7.3% + 0.2% supplemental. I decided against
private insurance due to the recent massive premium hikes, even though right
now it would be cheaper for me. (It's hard to get out of private insurance and
back into statutory insurance)

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mtmail
The rate is probably 15% with the employer paying the other half. The big
German public health insurance companies compete with each other but have to
offer a base catalogue of services so they're quite similar after all and the
rate difference is 0.1, maybe 0.5% between them. It is capped at 6200 Euro
gross, so the maximum amount you'd pay is 453 Euro/month (assuming 7.3% rate).

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HerpDerpLerp
In the UK my national insurance contributions are about %8 but that does just
go into the general tax pool and is not hypothecated to be spend on the
NHS/health.

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kspaans
In California I'm paying 3.4% of my gross pay for a high-deductible health
plan covering myself and my spouse.

EDIT: that's for health, vision, and dental.

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sharemywin
Not sure how it would work out but I think there should be cap on premium plus
out of pocket that's capped based on income. I think Obamacare expects premium
to be capped at 7% until your each median income. To me something like
7%(premium) and 10%(total out of pocket) based on income for everyone would be
reasonable.

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umlaut
I pay ~7.5% for myself and my spouse. We have four children covered by the
state's expanded Medicaid provision. State and federal taxes and budgeting
make it impossible to estimate not only how much I am paying for that portion,
but how much anyone is paying for it... Probably not another 10 percentage
points, though.

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Grangar
I pay around 4,5% in the Netherlands, with the smallest 'own risk'. I don't
know the English term for it, but if anything happens the first €350 in
healthcare costs for the year are on me (excluding family doctor visits). I
could choose to pay more for a lower monthly cost, but I don't.

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csdreamer7
'own risk' based on your description would be called a deductible.

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patrickgordon
Living in Australia, private health insurance, 1% of gross income, ~$1,000 pa.

This is a the cheapest plan at the time that was offered by this provider
(NIB) and I only did it so I didn't have to pay extra tax as part of the
medicare levy surcharge.

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tmoullet
I'm in the US and pay roughly 3.5% of my gross salary as my portion of the
insurance premium. I opted for the cheaper HMO (Kaiser) insurance though. My
employer pays the other 2/3rds of the premium. (I'm single, no kids)

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miguelrochefort
In Canada? Roughly 15%, which doesn't include much (no dental, no vision,
etc).

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kspaans
Seems high, that's what you're paying for private coverage? (I'm basing off my
experience in Ontario, I know other provinces are bound to be different,
Québec especially.) Or did you get that number by looking at your income taxes
vs government spending on health care?

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Sevii
I pay under 2% pre-tax with another 2% exposed to the deductible. Employer
covers around 80-90%. 401k + health insurance is pretty standard for devs.
Sounds like you are paid under market and have meagre benefits.

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lgieron
In Poland, it's free (i.e. covered by your taxes) as long as you have a
taxable income. If you don't pay any taxes, you can opt-in for around $90 a
month.

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iptables
if it's covered by your taxes, is it really free then?

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cabbeer
Americans pay more in taxes for heath coverage (combined) than anyone else...

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leojg
Here in Uruguay I think its about 7,5% for the unified healthcare system,
called FONASA

Then you affiliate to the health society you want(many privates and a public
one)

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ajtaylor
Zero. My employer pays 100%. Yes, they are awesome!

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pravda
No! You pay 100%! You are awesome!

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ojiikun
zero. I personally have yet to find a healthcare provider with a profit (or
lack thereof) model that is sufficiently differentiable from rigged gambling
such that I can in good conscience do business with them. in the meantime I
build and maintain a savings account for medical expenses and also pay the
Obamacare penalty.

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ruler88
Did you have a choice to the type of health insurance that you can choose
from? 17.6% is ridiculously high by any standards.

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kl_r
Sweden, roughly 10.5% of gross. County council tax (out of which 76% goes to
healthcare) and private insurance.

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csdreamer7
OP, you should have requested people put their country in the comment.

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sunstone
I pay 1%, though most people here pay 0% other than their income tax.

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cm2012
8.4%, my portion, NYC, for my wife and I.

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VOYD
Almost 10%, for myself and a child.

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keefe
of my gross salary? <1%

