Individual Health Insurance

One of the larger costs with having a baby is health insurance coverage. We calculated the numbers across three different scenarios (insurance through my work, insurance through Lediya's work, and individual health insurance) and determined that purchasing an individual health insurance policy is the most cost effective for Lucas.

A popular comparison site for health insurance is eHealthInsurance. I like it because they list a lot of the major insurers like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and you don't have to give them your name or other personal information before seeing the plan's specifics like monthly premium, deductible, and coinsurance percentage. They do require birth date and zip code. The quotes are usually for those in good health.

We found a Blue Cross plan through a broker that has a deductible of $3,500. It costs us just $78 per month versus the $300+ that we would have had to pay through our workplaces. True, we have to pay out of pocket until we reach the deductible, but we can offset that by claiming the costs against Lediya's healthcare pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA). We look at health insurance as coverage against major catastotrophes, and we can easily afford the high deductibles. I myself have individual health insurance that costs $54 a month, enabling me to pocket most of the $900 monthly allowance that my workplace provides to purchase insurance through a cafeteria plan.