Health Insurance

In response to a comment to our previous post, I will expand on the difficulties in choosing health care coverage. For us, we have always been fortunate enough to have coverage. We had student insurance, the U.S. Navy, and I have always worked for large companies which have provided good plans. It has been a point of great frustration for us for many years that our Congress and elected leaders or potential leaders will not address the health care crisis in this country, not so much for our benefit but for those less fortunate. For example, our oldest daughter does not now have coverage. The good news is that this coming March she will qualify for coverage with her new employer after reaching her first anniversary.

Each open enrollment period we do examine all the options and do the math. When high deductible plans with HSA's were introduced we were initially excited, but on closer examination we found they were more or less a break even for us compared to other options. It really comes down to your individual situation.

This year we did change plans from a PPO, local to this area, to more of a traditional type insurance which includes a network. This is to leave open the possibility of COBRA coverage for awhile after retirement. Since we will not have a permanent address we wanted a geographically expanded network . We are lucky that our doctors are in the new plan as well. At retirement we will consider all the options and a high deductible plan is certainly in the mix. We plan to stay in the US for most of our first year cruising so the international plan option is not available until the second year. International Medical Insurance