Russet

We moved to CT in 2011 - Glastonbury School district. They were strict with vaccine requirements. I thought we had everything covered, had an appointment with paediatrician when we moved in and thought we were all set. However, a couple of days before start of school, the school contacted us that there was an issue with the date of the last tetanus and we had to literally chase around to get a tetanus jab the day before start of school! They would not let our daughter start school without it. The other thing we realised within a week of starting school was that to sign up for any sports you needed to have had your annual physical and paperwork completed by the paediatrician - another trip to the doctors office!

tht

The plan is unlikely to be anything special, especially a small employer, most providers have maybe 6-7 options and the employer will have picked one if they are small and everyone gets the same.

That will range from PPO, HMO, EPO etc.. I have set these up for companies and as a smaller employer went through PEO called Trinet to get more options people could pick from.

https://www.aetna.com/health-insurance-plans.html

Most employers split the cost between employer and pre tax deduction for an employee, say 80/20, but they can pay 100%, it does not really change anything.

It would not be relevant for you now as you would have to leave within a couple of weeks if your husbands employment was terminated, but longer term picking the most expensive plan is not always best, if you get a GC and are terminated and want to use COBRA you have to pay 102% of the policy cost yourself if it’s not included in a termination package.

I now pick the HDHP policies, they have a much bigger deductible, but assuming nothing major happens we never pay more than $2-3k a year and we get to put $7300 in to a HSA, this balance builds up tax free year to year, but lower deductible plans may have an FSA that allows tax free funds, but these are use it or loose it, so if you over fund and can’t spend it you loose it.

Calli

We have a very unusual plan in the UK despite <100 employees (AXA Directors plan). But I will take your word for it if small companies don’t get much choice in the US.

I’m hoping to pick up how the system works once we move there as I don’t understand a lot of what you are saying (cobra, hdhp, hsa, fsa) 🙈 Is there a guide I can read that you would recommend?

Nutmegger

There's a link to an alphabetical glossary on this page, which may help.

Understand HI Definitions

tht

What is less usual in the UK than US is having a private plan. The AXA Directors plan is probably used by many small employers who want to offer employees the best private coverage they can, i.e. having coverage is "unusual" but for companies that do have it the plan is standard, last time I looked in the UK there wee only a handful of providers like Bupa, Axa, Aviva. It is not that small companies US don't get a choice, they probably have way more choice than the UK. they can pick any insurer who operates in the state they want employees cover in, and for NYC metro this is often covered as Tri-State, meaning you can use it in NY/CT and NJ as they are all so close and many live in 1 state and work in another. The point is that administration is expensive, and you get discounts based on a larger number of employees, so a small employer would pick 1 plan to cover all employees, while a larger one might offer 3 or more different ones all its employees can choose from, and many don't even have true insurance, if they are big enough (risk pool, i.e. number of employees) they self insure and have the insurance company as a plan administrator. If his employer is less than 50 employees they don't even legally need to offer health insurance, but would get no employees if they did not, what I have seen in smaller startups is that the founder picks what they want and everyone else gets the same until they grow larger.

You won't be on the ACA market place, but the terms are all the same so you can use the glossary her, I would start with these:

https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/deductible/
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/co-payment/
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/...maximum-limit/
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/allowed-amount/
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/co-insurance/
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/premium/

Calli

Thanks both! I’ll get reading

karenkaren1

yes I meant to say no further cost...above the monthly price we pay to be insured