Your federal employee insurance is VERY generous, @HImom. I’ve never heard of wisdom teeth, crowns, or fillings being covered under medical insurance (as opposed to dental) before.
Several years back, one of the kids had a school sports related injury which sheared parts of several teeth off (and resulted in other injuries). I tried to get the medical to cover repairing the teeth since it was due to an accident. Zero success.
The plan we have is very good, you are right. It also doesn’t cap dental expenses in a year–some plans do. The plan doesn’t cover nitrous oxide for procedures but is a great plan with no deductibles and no annual or lifetime cap in medical expenses. It allows us to get preventative and maintenance care so we don’t have catastrophic medical expenses.
Our plan also covers us when we get care in other states and at usual and customary rates when we get care in other countries. (Fortunately we haven’t needed medical care outside the US yet.) We are grateful the plan allows us to choose our providers from a huge list that are in network and not need referrals to see specialists, get 2nd opinions or even 3rd.
We have had a version of thus plan since we married over 3 decades ago. I made H switch from his HMO to this BCBS PPO plan.
As someone whose teeth/gums have been a problem for years, I have long joked that if the people who drew up dental insurance plans also worked on automobile insurance, it would cover oil changes but not accidents. Ala @CT1417, it’s a reimbursement account that I sign up for to get the small employer subsidy.
I can pay for teeth cleanings easily, but a few of these 4 digit procedures do add up. Every now and then, I get a seemimgly random reimbursement. It’s like operant conditioning a rat to keep signing up.
My dentist a few years ago mentioned that dental insurance reimbursement for the most part has not changed in decades and is worth less and less. That $2000 in annual benefits went far back in the '80s. Now, it doesn’t go that far, but I sure appreciate that benefit when I get a new crown most years. Cleanings alone were a pretty penny per year back when I was covering 4 mouths. Now, not so much.
Finding a good dentist in Thailand or Mexico might be a project for the future.
HImom, is your federal medical insurance universal to all federal employees in all states? Is your insurance related to medicare at all?
HiMom, that kind of dental coverage is specific to your BCBS plan – DH is a fed EE on GEHA and they will cover $2k a year, period. That was just increased from $1500 in the past year. It covered DH’s root canal, but not the crown.
Cbreeze, fed employee health insurance has nothing to do with Medicare except that we become eligible for it at retirement. If you have been a long-term fed employee, you qualify to have the option to continue the insurance once you begin collecting medicare (basically in lieu of signing up for Part B or D). We would still pay Medicare A premium plus the GEHA retiree premium. Not sure if it will be cheaper for us, but the Rx coverage is critical for me, so we will do it no matter the cost.
Various insurers offer contracts to the fed govt, who decides which ones to offer. Postal employees get a lot more choices and different rates thanks to collective bargaining. Foreign Service employees also have different coverage because of the issues they face being stationed around the world. We’re on GEHA, which is one of the big fed plans, but it is administered by several different insurers, depending on the state. Ours is administered by United Health Care. We have enough OOP medical expenses to have gotten professional judgment on FA. It’s good coverage, but not cheap.
DH doesn’t want to retire any time soon anyway, but the medical coverage for me is what keeps him from bolting to the private side. Even if he made more $$, the financial risk due to my medical bills to us is higher.
We have a BCBS federal plan only available to HI residents. We had the option to switch to the national fed BCBS plan but I like our local one, especially since most local providers are in network and familiar with it. The dentist mentioned that the plan didn’t have a top limit, since D got her 4 wisdom teeth out and H and I both got crowns all in the same year. Insurer paid 50% of contract amount excluding D’s nitrous oxide.
I’ve had my same BCBS insurer my entire life and get along fairly well with them.
H has Medicare A&B as well as the BCBS family plan. He doesn’t HAVE to have both but we sleep better having the dual coverage.
@HImom —I don’t even know how many different carriers and plans I have had; could not begin to count!
Health insurance should not be a luxury good, but that is the way it feels at times.
I did have Aetna briefly–maybe for a year or two when my employer switched to them but as soon as I could switched back to our local BCBS instead. It’s so great to have a local comoany that you can go down and meet face to face if needed. I do feel fortunate that I have been able to have same insurer nearly my entire life and wish allcould as well.
@greatlakesmom try Canada!
I have heard good things about Costa Rica having US trained medical and dental personnel, with CR prices.
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So are our recent reitirees still having fun? 
Had a nice chat with our CPA tax preparer. He agreed with what we are doing and us doing the same thing for him and his wife–insurance they employer + Medicare A & B. He says no one can know when benefits could change or employer can stop benefit or cost shift it to employee/retiree.
He also agreed that it makes sense to keep H’s life insurance policy in place, since the premium is relatively reasonable and stable and would provide tax free payout when H dies and pension decreases to 55% survival benefit. We don’t NEED the policy but it’s a reasonable investment for us to have.
It was a positive meeting. It made me happy that we are fine even if we don’t have any huge written financial plan, other than living below our income (whatever it is) on a regular basis.
I’m approaching Medicare eligibility but still working. My employer advises to sign up for Medicare Part A as soon as I become eligible because it’s “free” (as in, you’re already paying for it through your taxes and there’s no additional premium), so why not? But they advise against signing up for Medicare Part B as long as I’m on the employer’s health plan because I’d be paying a monthly premium for additional insurance that essentially I wouldn’t use. And there’s no penalty for signing up for Part B later, when I retire or discontinue the employer’s health insurance.
My employer is a large public university. It’s unlikely they’d significantly reduce coverage or dramatically shift costs to employees, but even if they did, I’d at least have several months’ notice before their next open enrollment period, so I could drop their coverage and sign up for Medicare Part B at that time.
Am I missing something?
@bclintonk , I don’t think you’re missing anything. I am on Medicare Part A, for free, as secondary insurance to my wife’s employer’s insurance. I did not sign up for part B. You have to be sure not to have an insurance gap, but AFAIK, that’s all there is to it.
No, we got Medicare B after H was no longer working and fully retired. We pay for our portion of the family plan on H’s medical insurance and his employer pays the other portion of the premium. One if my relatives said I don’t need BOTH the family insurance AND Medicare B, since the insurance plan is so good.
I’m just risk adverse because insurance and retirement benefits are subject to change and if our at some future date the benefits aren’t as good or premiums are very high, we might re-examine if we want to continue having both.
If you opt to get Medicare B more than 8 months after you turned 65 or were no longer working and having employer insurance plan, you can pay penalties for life of 10% more on premiums per year you didn’t get Medicare B. Those penalties are lifetime. We definitely want to avoid lifetime penalties.
H got Medicare A as soon as he qualified at 65.
For right now, we don’t REALLY need both H’s Medicare A+B + great insurance but it doesn’t hurt (other than paying premiums for B and our portion of insurance premiums) and allows us to sleep better at nite. The insurance covers me and D too and we don’t qualify for Medicare.
Yes over one year retirement and no regrets. Pros include time is your own and you choose what to do with it. Healthier feeling overall. Cannot come up with any cons.
That sounds great, @rockymtnhigh
Great to hear, @rockymtnhigh.
ShawWife and I are about to put a bid in on a lot (w/a tear-down house on it). It has 330’ of frontage on a pond – you could not build a house there now but can build where it is (and there are some ways to expand the footprint after negotiation with the Conservation Commission). It is unique in that the lot is 5 minutes walk to our town center but the house feels completely isolated. It’s an 8 minute walk to the commuter rail station. The other side of the pond is all town land or wetlands protected areas. You can’t see any neighbors on the pond – it is the only house really directly on the pond. There are houses across the street from us but most are hard to see. We would be building a significant house and including my wife’s studio on the ground floor, I think. Our challenge is not to overbuild for the neighborhood but also to avoid spending so much money that we feel constrained to rent a place in CA (which we’ve been doing in the winters) or to buy such a place or constrained to take vacations.
The pond used to be swimmable but there apparently is a lot of vegetation – but one can canoe, kayak and fish (it has a little dock, though I’m not sure that was approved by the Conservation Commission), and skate, play hockey and icefish in the winter (I’ve never tried it or had any inclination to do so, but our property does seem to have an ice fishing hut on it). Likely a great place for grandchildren to come and visit (if and when some arrive – nothing imminent). I am planning on this being a house for our next 20 years, so if we get the lot, we will put an elevator in it. I would have a home office overlooking the pond and my wife (who paints water and plants at water’s edge) will have a studio on the ground floor facing the pond. Lots of glass on that side of the house.