Cut your health premiums by $5,000 this year…

Register Today: February Open Season Online Chat with Mike Causey February-Only Enrollment for FEHB Self Plus One plan

Could you use a $100-a-week (take-home) pay raise?

If your family consists of two people, you have a until the end of the month (25 days and counting) to make a change that could reduce your premiums by anywhere from a few hundred dollars to more than $5,000 this year. All you have to do is check out the 31 national health plans available to federal workers, postal employees and retirees and compare their self-plus-family health premiums against the new self-plus-one option. Self-plus-one, the new-kid option on the block, is for families totaling two people. That can be a couple, a single parent with one child, whatever.

During the month of February, people who are currently enrolled in self-plus-family plans will have the option to shift to the self-plus-one (S+1) option. In some cases, the premium difference is literally only pennies. In one plan (the NALC CDHP plan) going from the family to the S+1 option won’t save you anything! Both charge employee and retiree members $2,826.20 this year. At the other end of the extreme, people who shift from the MD-IPA high option self-plus-family option into MD-IPA
high option S+1 option will save a little over $5,000 in premiums this year. Your premium would go from $8,869.12 to $3,755.96. And there are choices in between for other plans.

So for two-person families, reducing your premiums is doable. But it is not going to be easy. You will need to check the price tags on each plan you are considering. In some, moving from family to the S+1 option will save you big bucks. But in some plans the savings are tiny. In a few cases the S+1 actually costs more than the traditional family plan. Go figure. Which is what you have to do.

Earlier this week we talked about how disappointed many feds are with the new two-person S+1 option. Many feds and retirees, who either don’t have children or whose kids have aged out of their FEHBP plans, figured the new option would save them big bucks. That’s despite the fact that for years, many experts say there would be little difference — especially over time — because so many older couples (with heavier medical costs) would migrate to the S+1 plans. That so-called “adverse selection,” as they call it, would over time minimize the savings to health plans as young healthy couples moved into them.

In the first year of the new option the experts appear to have been largely correct. The assumptions made by many health plans show little premium difference between the family of two and the multi-member family plans. But there are exceptions:

Reader Mark Guerin told us that people who go into the MD-IPA plan self-plus-one option “can save over $100 per paycheck.” He is dead right. The MD-IPA S+1 plan premium (to you) this year will be $3,755.96 while the premium for the regular self-plus-family plan will be $8,869.12. Big difference. Huge difference.

Persons eligible to switch plans can save several hundred dollars this year in premiums. Others not so much. The NALC Value option, a highly rated plan, will charge $2,433.60 for its new S+1 option whereas the premium for the self-plus-family plan will be $2,433.34. A savings of less than 30 cents this year.

How to shop? Over the next couple of weeks we’ll have a series of columns listing best-buys for folks considering (and eligible for) the S+1 option. Next Wednesday, Feb. 10, health insurance expert Walton Francis will be the guest on our Your Turn radio show. That’s 10 a.m. next Wednesday. Francis is editor of Consumers Checkbook Guide to Health Premiums. He’ll run down the best buys for people considering the S+1 option. You can call during the show or send advance questions to me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com that he’ll answer on air. Immediately following the show we’ll be having a (free) webinar where you can also ask specific questions dealing with your situation.

So, do a little homework, maybe give yourself a take-home pay raise equivalent to almost $100 per week.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

A penny weighs 2.500 grams.

Source: U.S. Mint

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