It is getting so ridiculous now to pay for health insurance that I am certain we are on the verge of the collapse of the health insurance industry. Our new health insurance premiums were unveiled this week at my company and I now have the privilege of paying $450/month for health insurance.

It gets worse! I’ll have $500 deductible (per family member) and Out of Pocket of $4000. Coverage is 90% so I’ll pay the remaining 10% out of pocket too. It gets even worse for out of network but I’ll likely stay in network to avoid that nightmare.

So let me do some math. $450/month + $166/month (deductibles) + $333/month (Out of Pocket) = $950/month for health coverage plus I still need to cover the remaining 10%.

These calculations assume that we’ll fully hit our deductibles and have one $4000 out of pocket major expense. Based on historical usage, these calculations are about right. No matter how careful we are with our health things happen – kids break arm, wife twists knee, etc. Does anyone think $950/month is truly ridiculous? I’m not even adding in prescriptions or other stuff like emergency visits.

As bad as these expenses are they are really only the half of it as my employer picks up about 60% of the expense on the business side of things so it’s really costing about $1800/month to insure an employee and that is totally ridiculous.

Ultimately, this may be the last year I pay health insurance premiums since it will become officially cheaper for me to fly my family first class to Mexico, South America, Canada, the Carribean or perhaps India to receive medical treatment than to utilize American health care.