[MarkL]

Healthcare can be quite a hit on the pocketbook... In my case, before my company was bought out, and I became elligible for the company health care plan, I was self insured... Here's my old monthly health care bill (and I'm only 41 years old!)

Health Insurance Premium : $345.00 (This was after moving up to a $1500ded/$2500 max out of pocket rate. If I would have kept my old $500/$1000, it would have been $550.00)
Co-Payment for Medications: $118.00 (This is for medication I take daily for Crohns disease. It does not include any other "specialty meds"). FWIW, if I didn't have the insurance, my med bill would be roughly $425.00/month.

Monthly cost: $463.00/month.

My home mortgage payment is $465/month!

And my health insurance rates had gone up by at least 18% a year, for the last 8 years, even if I never used the insurance. For instance, the first two years that I had the insurance, my rates still went up by 18% and then 19%, even though I was NOT taking any meds, and didn't see the doctor, even for a check-up! The year following my back surgery, my insurance went up by 35%.

Mark

[areafiftyone]

Ouch!!! I am 42 and my company's health care plan sucks! But you have to have some kind of insurance or else you are up a creek if something ever happens!

[FITZ]

I'm glad because we got to chose between different deductibles. If you go for the really high deductible you don't end up having to pay so much --- even with a $200 deductible, I usually never reached it so I figured it would be better to pocket the premiums. You can easily build up enough savings from that to pay a high deductible.