re: Open Enrollment 2026 - Health Insurance Increase

I’m self employed also and have BCBS for me and wife. It’s going up to $2100 month in January.

What are my options?

What are you going to do?

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I hear UHC is the worst offender of undercutting BCBS on rates to get companies on their plans and then jacking it up like a mf’er the following year.

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We have not experienced that, yet. Our executive team switched from BCBS to UHC 3 years ago in order to reduce costs, while also lowering the employee's deductibles. Our pricing for the 2025/2026 policy period is only 4% higher than BCBS' pricing was for 2023

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people are believing it’s a scam, and it’s getting harder and harder to argue it’s not.

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I can definitely appreciate that sentiment from a healthy perspective where you may not use health insurance beyond a few primary care visits a year, but from someone who has had catastrophic illnesses between cancer, a stem cell transplant, and a double lung transplant, health insurance is very beneficial. It definitely needs some work, but the system is too large for a simple fix.

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Do a little research on the record profits that some of the big insurance companies are raking in

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As opposed to small insurance? Lazy.

UHC reported 14 billion in profit in 2024. On $400 billion in revenue. That's not exactly earth shattering.

Everything about Obamacare was backloaded so that the consequences, and subsequent pressure on Congress to "fix" it with more taxpayer dollars would happen during any administration but his.

frick John McCain, and all the retarded retired veterans who kept voting for him in Arizona because he was "one of them."

I have BCBS-TX and my rates are going up less than 1% with our company. I wonder if your company had a lot more claims?

Employee -Family plan
$595 with HDHP Gold and company adds $1,400 to our HSA
$2K/$4K deductibles and everything but preventative is %20 after deductible.

$536 for the PPO with $3k/$6K deductible, Primary $25, Specialist $50, Urgent $75, and Emergency $250 + 20% coinsurance.

I have BCBS-Tx for my wife and I. Went up $41/month.
Thinking about moving to the ppo -b option that saves $200/month.
We’re healthy now, but worried about the out-of-pocket since we’re getting older. Only takes one major health issue.

What a great deal I paid $1400 a month for a family of four

Got really lucky here. My company was bought out by a much bigger corporation and my rates actually fell by 2.5% and the coverage is better.

I feel very blessed and fortunate for it, but it doesn't negate the sympathy and anger I feel for pretty much everyone else who has to pay these exorbitant increases.

If the GOPe doesn't address this in the next year and actually do something about it, they're going to get absolutely (and rightfully) crushed in 2026 and 2028.

All the histrionics and manufactured, faux outrage right now are about ICE and mUh bLuMpF, but the average voter right now sees grocery prices slowly stabilizing, energy costs slowly decreasing, military getting back to itself and the southern border secured. They're not worried about those topics right now. They're worried about increasing healthcare and insurance costs, because that is the main thing affecting the voters that actually decide the future of this nation.

I promise you this, we can almost certainly count on the GOPe to shite the bed and frick the dog at the same time, and intentionally blow this golden opportunity to turn America RED for a generation.

In my wife's plan, I have to recertify every year as a family member. If you don't, you are not covered for the next year. It is a trap that sometimes screws people.

When she went full-time, we both enrolled in October. But, she didn't list me again in November because she had just prepared the certification. So, I lost a year of coverage (no big deal, had no big claims).

This year, I have to be careful because I'm in the middle of an 8 dose infusion that runs $200k for each one.