health insurance for fulltime RVers with health issues
Nise said
11:13 AM Apr 7, 2011
Greetings to all! This is my first attempt at the RV-Dreams forum which I just discovered this morning. Great site! Due to some recent changes (husband was laid off), my husband and I are once again considering full-time motor-homing. We are both 59 years old with no real ties as our children moved across country for their jobs. The only concern holding us (me really) back from becoming full-timers is the high cost of premiums on medical insurance, as my husband has some prexisting heart problems. Finding good health care if we moved away is daunting, along with paying the possible sky-high premiums. Presently, I work fulltime and receive good health insurance through my company. How do fulltimers with health issues find adequate health care and find manageable costs in medical health insurance?
Thanks, Nise
Jack Mayer said
03:33 PM Apr 7, 2011
we have been fulltime 11 years. Health insurance is our single biggest expense, and has been all along. I also have a preexisting condition - high blood pressure (controlled). We do the same as Howard and Linda. We use an HSA with companion high deductible (10K each, in our cases) single policies. That is the only way to keep manageable premiums that I know of if you do not have health insurance provided or supplemented in some way.
Tim & Robyn said
08:20 AM Apr 8, 2011
First of all, welcome aboard.
Secondly, play around with the SEARCH function on the forum, as there has been a lot of discussion here on just this issue. There is also a link somewhere from the main RV-Dreams page that discusses this.
I'm very fortunate. My job from BCBS/GA got outsourced to IBM in 2005 when I was 58. IBM hired me to continue doing the same job, but my combined age/years in the job made me eligible for early retirement from BCBS. I took it to get the retiree insurance, as well as to roll over my frozen fixed benefit retirement plan into an IRA.
My wife and I were covered by the retiree insurance with monthly premiums of around $280. Now that she has passed away a year and a half ago, I've dropped her from my retiree coverage and my current premiums are zero.
I don't know if any of these scenarios are possible for you, but it's worth looking into. Of course, there is a disclaimer in my benefits booklet - practically the very last statement - which says the company reserves the right to cancel the program at any time.
Tim
Nise said
09:17 AM Apr 8, 2011
A big thank you to Jack and Tim! First, please accept my condolences on your wife's recent passing, Tim. The full-time RVers sound like a great group of people who offer support. I will search the RV-Dreams site for ways to handle medical insurance. I understand now that going with an extremely high deductible is probably our only choice (wow, 10K!?) I'm not familiar with the HSA plans and will also research what the plans have to offer. Unfortunately, neither of us has had the option of a retiree insurance plan with our companies. And sadly those "retirement packages" appear to be a thing of the past, as health insurance premiums continue to rise at unreasonable rates; no hopes to solve this from our government either!
Thanks again, Nise
Tim & Robyn said
07:21 AM Apr 9, 2011
"... a thing of the past". No kidding. That's why I took early retirement from BCBS when I transitioned to IBM. I had already seen scaling back of BCBS retiree benefits, and was pretty darn sure that would continue, and it has.
I don't know that much about the business side of the health insurance industry - I was a mainframe computer technician, and my job was to keep things running smoothly. That took all my attention, because there were always problems that needed to be quickly resolved.
I am fully retired now, and glad to be rid of the pressure. I can't tell you how many times I had senior executives standing in my cube looking over my shoulder while I dealt with problem determination/resolution issues. The questions were always 'when will this be fixed, when will this be fixed?' and at times I wanted to shout we can do one of two things : diagnose and fix the problem, or continue talking about it - take your choice. I always bit my tongue though... Those guys were under pressure too.
Good luck with your research. As I said, there is a lot of information on this issue in this website.
Tim
Cindy T said
03:52 PM Apr 9, 2011
I am self employed so no company benefits. I got health insurance & dental insurance thru www.ehealthinsurance.com. Like Jack, I have a high deductible but at least I know if some major medical problem occurs, I'm covered. For routine stuff, I pay for the doctor visit, tests, etc myself.
Greetings to all! This is my first attempt at the RV-Dreams forum which I just discovered this morning. Great site! Due to some recent changes (husband was laid off), my husband and I are once again considering full-time motor-homing. We are both 59 years old with no real ties as our children moved across country for their jobs. The only concern holding us (me really) back from becoming full-timers is the high cost of premiums on medical insurance, as my husband has some prexisting heart problems. Finding good health care if we moved away is daunting, along with paying the possible sky-high premiums. Presently, I work fulltime and receive good health insurance through my company. How do fulltimers with health issues find adequate health care and find manageable costs in medical health insurance?
Thanks, Nise
First of all, welcome aboard.
Secondly, play around with the SEARCH function on the forum, as there has been a lot of discussion here on just this issue. There is also a link somewhere from the main RV-Dreams page that discusses this.
I'm very fortunate. My job from BCBS/GA got outsourced to IBM in 2005 when I was 58. IBM hired me to continue doing the same job, but my combined age/years in the job made me eligible for early retirement from BCBS. I took it to get the retiree insurance, as well as to roll over my frozen fixed benefit retirement plan into an IRA.
My wife and I were covered by the retiree insurance with monthly premiums of around $280. Now that she has passed away a year and a half ago, I've dropped her from my retiree coverage and my current premiums are zero.
I don't know if any of these scenarios are possible for you, but it's worth looking into. Of course, there is a disclaimer in my benefits booklet - practically the very last statement - which says the company reserves the right to cancel the program at any time.
Tim
Thanks again,
Nise
"... a thing of the past". No kidding. That's why I took early retirement from BCBS when I transitioned to IBM. I had already seen scaling back of BCBS retiree benefits, and was pretty darn sure that would continue, and it has.
I don't know that much about the business side of the health insurance industry - I was a mainframe computer technician, and my job was to keep things running smoothly. That took all my attention, because there were always problems that needed to be quickly resolved.
I am fully retired now, and glad to be rid of the pressure. I can't tell you how many times I had senior executives standing in my cube looking over my shoulder while I dealt with problem determination/resolution issues. The questions were always 'when will this be fixed, when will this be fixed?' and at times I wanted to shout we can do one of two things : diagnose and fix the problem, or continue talking about it - take your choice. I always bit my tongue though...
Those guys were under pressure too.
Good luck with your research. As I said, there is a lot of information on this issue in this website.
Tim
I am self employed so no company benefits. I got health insurance & dental insurance thru www.ehealthinsurance.com. Like Jack, I have a high deductible but at least I know if some major medical problem occurs, I'm covered. For routine stuff, I pay for the doctor visit, tests, etc myself.
Cindy T