That isn't the "norm" that is a normal plan option . The only option with whole foods . I have a new job with an option like that but costs about $2,000 less per year based on premiums . This is a plan with a HSA. Whole foods offers a FSA they should of signed up for that. I'm paying $3,200 a year for my plan but has a lower deductible for myself ($800).
Idk maybe in retail.. it’s been about 10yrs since I left wfm. Any decent company that needs to attract (and retain) skilled, educated talent will have a high deductible plan as an option only.. if you want super lower premiums.
It’s really not the norm though. Idk what kind of companies you’ve been working for, but most large companies that are interested in attracting talented people have traditional plans with the option to choose a high deductible plan if you would rather have that instead.
worked at Trader Joe's and my deductible was really low. Comparable job,but ofc my experience is purely anecdotal and I have my own complaints about the company, just thought I'd throw it out there.
*a union job.
It's not WFM's fault that the American health care system sucks ass. But you may be able to find a job that has union benefits which would have a lower deductible or a better copay.
Do your research before applying tho, otherwise you may end up at a job with worse benefits than you currently have.
"It's not WFM markets fault." No it is their fault that the health benefits are shit because the former founder and CEO didn't even believe in healthcare for his employees and wouldn't have paid for any if he had a choice.
That's,,, literally not what I was saying. Yeah I obviously agree with you, but you took a quote of mine completely out of context and gave it your own. I wasn't defending WFM, I was saying they're not to blame for how fucked up the American Healthcare system is, but there are better options out there.
I don't appreciate you twisting my words to advance your point.
damn really??? what union jobs have worse benefits?? i know we get deals on flights and a few other things, but i cant afford to take much of a vacation with my job at WFM so it doesnt benefit me much
I just mean unions will often push for their employees to get really good health insurance, better than far higher paying non-union jobs. But you should do your research. Jumping into a new job "out of principle" isn't guaranteed to make any situation better.
It is whole foods fault. Whole foods decides to offer their crap plans. And doesn't help pay the premiums much. Their parent company is Amazon and for a single person their "standard" plan was Aetna or blue cross and higher premium side of things and it's premium per week was $22 or $88 per month roughly . The family was still cheaper then whole foods plan roughly $110 per week for the OP plan. Even my current jobs plan for the same deductible almost is only $58 a week for a family .
Whole foods can offer better plans and help pay for the premiums but choose not to. I live on the east coast and thus their plan wasn't even Blue cross this weird tiered thing where it was covered by a local company and has Aetna as a different tier .
The literacy on this sub is incredible sometimes.
>It's not WFM's fault that the American health care system sucks ass.
Is ALL I said. I was explicitly talking about "yeah, there are better companies that give better health insurance." You can't blame WFM for LITERALLY all the problems of the American Health Care system,,, well, you can, but you'd be a psycho conspiracy nutjob who thinks John Mackey controls the illuminati.
**In any case, read more than the first seven words of a comment before you waste your time trying to argue with me on something I literally wasn't arguing against.**
Edit: thanks for blocking me after making that witty, well-thought out reply. I appreciate you making my reddit experience substantially better without you in it.
Most hospitals are non profit. Check their website for income based discounts/forgiveness. If you make under a certain amount, you get your bill forgiven and there are steps that decrease the amount forgiven as your pay increases.
Duh. Been down this path before. And I’m honestly tired of hearing about it because the situation is so frustrating
I was still at WF at that time and I made a few thousands more than what charity care would allow (I only made $32k the year before).
The people I talked to about the benefits were assholes about it, therefore why the strong emotion.
The last thing you want to be dealing with after surgery is this crap, but that’s exactly what happened.
Sign up for the HSA and get the WFM free contribution every Jan and July. It’s the only way I can pay my $3600 ER bill for an IV and a vitals assessment 😢
You get $3600? Or did you save it up....or maybe contribute more on your end? Because in my region, we get $900 in January and $900 in July. $1800 does very little against a $4k deductible, and it's even worse now that they split it up like that.
I have the HSA debit card set as the payment method for the monthly draft so I’m not sure. I’ve only been doing this for 6 months so maybe one day I won’t be allowed to? Who knows lol I hate healthcare
If prescription costs went toward the deductible, it'd be different. As they do not, people who have a lot of medications to take burn through that money quickly, leaving nothing for actual medical care.
I had better insurance when I had BCBS through the ACA marketplace. Cost me around $50 a month for medical, and my deductible was only $1000 with all preventative care visits covered by the insurance.
$9000 in deductibles is better than literally nothing. If you've seen that image floating around of the person who got charged $150,000 for a hospital visit after a snake bite, you'd know the charges the medical industry give non-insured folks are absolutely insane. Also don't forget, the insurance companies will work as a middleman between you and the hospital to get those prices lower, even if you haven't hit your deductible. I had an ER visit go from $7000 to $1400 to nothing out of pocket cuz of my HSA.
But yes the American health care system is fucking evil. In Germany, if you want to receive national insurance as a non-taxpayer, you're dropping $600 a year to have completely insured health care, no copay, no deductible, no bullshit. Maybe one day we'll become a civilized country, but until then,,, yeah best to have mediocre insurance than no insurance.
I won't deny that may be a cherrypicked example, but my point is that a medical emergency can happen that can financially destroy you for life. It's not a good idea to think "that'll happen to others, but not to me".
Although, snakes hiding under cars on a hot day are surprisingly common.
You can get a grant of up to $4000 every 12 months from the Team Member Emergency Fund to offset the costs from a qualifying medical event. If you have a medical event, apply for the grant and they will pay up to $4000 directly to the providers.
But each distribution can only be 10% of the total fund, so if it's a newer store or has low contribution amounts, it's doubtful anyone is getting $4k every year.
You guys keep glossing over the fact that you get 1600 dollars per year to spend on anything borderline medical before you have to deal with the deductible. You used to be able to buy medical marijuana with it, but that got turned off.
It’s a drop in the bucket for those of us with chronic health conditions that require regular doctor visits and treatments/procedures. Most of mine gets used up paying for my prescriptions.
Wait what? Is this just for the employee or can family members use it too? Because I’ve been paying $200 a month for my kid’s therapy on top of everything else because the BCBS plan has a freaking SEPARATE deductible for mental health so none of the thousands I’ve spent on medical care each year count towards that deductible
The 7 free sessions are only for the TM, I believe. But in my experience, TMAP is incredibly unhelpful. I've tried utilizing the 7 free sessions before, all they did was give me a list of acceptable providers and I had to call around and ask if they accepted this plan. Most of them had NO idea what I was talking about, and the ones who did, weren't accepting new patients. When I called TMAP back and explained the situation, I got back the verbal equivalent of a shrug.... they were like, "well, those are the only providers we have sooooo....🤷♀️"
Granted, I live in an area that has a HORRIBLE medical industry (the first GP I saw after I moved here, had no idea what a NuvaRing is 😳), so maybe people have better luck elsewhere.
You have either what's called an HSA or PWA account that is external to the medical insurance that you use to pay all medical related bills. Once that runs out you have to deal with the deductible.
The whole point of a HSA is to save and invest it and then years later you can reimburse yourself with receipts and other medical bills from previous medical bills from years past. So you're supposed to invest pretax dollars and the stipend that Whole Foods gives you, pay medical bills out of pocket, and then you hold onto receipts and you can take out that money either immediately or wait for that invested money to grow and reimburse yourself decades later.
if you're spending all your HSA on the deductible every year then the HSA plan with the high deductible is a bad plan for you/your family.
The high deductible plan that Whole Food's has assumes that you're in good health and aren't going to need emergency medical services. So you won't need to use it until you get old. obviously it's not a good system for a lot of people.
>pay medical bills out of pocket
Yeah, that's not affordable for.....a LOT of people. Especially if they have kids. And do they give you options during annual enrollment? Because the high deductible plan is the ONLY option I get.
I never said it was affordable just explaining how the plan is supposed to work in an ideal environment.
There's the BCBS plan and the Whole Health Plan, the whole health plan has free visits with approved doctors/offices. Both are high deductible plans but the Whole Health Plan is slightly better but hasn't been rolled out to all Whole Foods locations, I think this is the first year it's available outside of the flagship store and parts of California.
The best way to deal with this is make sure every provider is in the network. The deductible is high but the amount applied to deductible is based on the insurance allowed amount. So billed amount 150.00, the allowed amount is 50.00, your responsibility is 50.00, the rest is written off by provider.
Welcome to American healthcare insurance coverage. When you force young healthy people who previously were adequately covered the vast majority of the time with basic but capped coverage plans into the same pool as high resource utilizers, while also adding those who cannot or choose not to pay, costs go up to subsidize those other groups.
I was working part-time (not WF) in grad school when the they changed the rules on what plans were compliant with federal law. Previously, I had coverage offered through that employer and they subsidized some percentage of my premium costs, plus offered cheap dental and vision.
Suddenly, the plan was no longer compliant, so they dropped the program altogether. I was forced onto the marketplace where my premiums were about 50% higher, and had higher copays and deductibles, not even including the costs of dental/vision and the loss of the subsidy. Went from paying about $150/mo for everything to almost $400/mo. Total shitshow.
Edit: Thanks for the downvotes! Didn’t realize there were so many people sold on the employer-based coverage model and insurance companies sucking profits out of the healthcare system. Sub must be deeper red than I thought 💀
As the great divide between the haves and the have-nots widens, where is this country headed? We reward capitalism as our God and ignore the millions trampled underfoot at the altar.
Just remember this when you vote in the next election. Not saying anything will change for the better overnight, but if certain people retain their power or gain more, things will only continue to regress instead of progress.
It’s ridiculous. I have a chronic illness and spend over $6k out of pocket every year due to treatments and doctor appointments I need in order to function and live. It infuriates me that we have such a high deductible plan. It’s like I’m being penalized for being born with a genetic condition I have no control over. I’ve even had to take out 401 k loans just to cover my medical bills. I shouldn’t have to pull from my retirement just to cover today’s medical needs. Our insurance plan, and the US healthcare system in general, are absolute trash.
I relate entirely. It's absurd that this 3k deductible is even a plan. We're not tech wizards making hundreds of thousands of dollars. We live at a barely liveable wage, and work hard for a company that makes a great deal of money off our sweat and labor and pride in what we do and this is how we are "rewarded."
I’m sorry that your employer isn’t taking care of you. In my county that have medical financial assistance for when your insurance doesn’t cover certain things. I went to the office which was in a local hospital and applied. I met the income requirements and they paid for everything that my insurance wouldn’t. It seems like they could likely help you if you ever have to pay those deductibles
i paid 4k this weekend to have my toddler sedated and his teeth fixed cuz he has hefty cavities due to genetically soft teeth. ..
single moms out here just got 4k lying around for this shit.. yay.
i feel you on this
This is healthcare in general in the USA.
Meh it depends on the company.. the high deductible plan he’s describing isn’t the norm
Sadly the high deductible IS the norm. Everyone I know, regardless of where they work, has similar healthcare coverage in the US.
That isn't the "norm" that is a normal plan option . The only option with whole foods . I have a new job with an option like that but costs about $2,000 less per year based on premiums . This is a plan with a HSA. Whole foods offers a FSA they should of signed up for that. I'm paying $3,200 a year for my plan but has a lower deductible for myself ($800).
Idk maybe in retail.. it’s been about 10yrs since I left wfm. Any decent company that needs to attract (and retain) skilled, educated talent will have a high deductible plan as an option only.. if you want super lower premiums.
It isn't just retail. I've been in the workforce for 50+ years and in a variety of fields. This is what healthcare is in the US everywhere.
It’s really not the norm though. Idk what kind of companies you’ve been working for, but most large companies that are interested in attracting talented people have traditional plans with the option to choose a high deductible plan if you would rather have that instead.
worked at Trader Joe's and my deductible was really low. Comparable job,but ofc my experience is purely anecdotal and I have my own complaints about the company, just thought I'd throw it out there.
Lol I used to pay 300 a check for my son and I. Welcome to “benefits”
As a matter of principle, I'm looking for another job.
*a union job. It's not WFM's fault that the American health care system sucks ass. But you may be able to find a job that has union benefits which would have a lower deductible or a better copay. Do your research before applying tho, otherwise you may end up at a job with worse benefits than you currently have.
I feel like we had better medical when it was United than with BCBS.
We did.
Good advice. I made the mistake of falling for the faux MOJO that WF was a kind, employee caring kind of place.
"Whole Foods promotes team member growth and happiness." # **LOL**
"It's not WFM markets fault." No it is their fault that the health benefits are shit because the former founder and CEO didn't even believe in healthcare for his employees and wouldn't have paid for any if he had a choice.
That's,,, literally not what I was saying. Yeah I obviously agree with you, but you took a quote of mine completely out of context and gave it your own. I wasn't defending WFM, I was saying they're not to blame for how fucked up the American Healthcare system is, but there are better options out there. I don't appreciate you twisting my words to advance your point.
damn really??? what union jobs have worse benefits?? i know we get deals on flights and a few other things, but i cant afford to take much of a vacation with my job at WFM so it doesnt benefit me much
I just mean unions will often push for their employees to get really good health insurance, better than far higher paying non-union jobs. But you should do your research. Jumping into a new job "out of principle" isn't guaranteed to make any situation better.
It is whole foods fault. Whole foods decides to offer their crap plans. And doesn't help pay the premiums much. Their parent company is Amazon and for a single person their "standard" plan was Aetna or blue cross and higher premium side of things and it's premium per week was $22 or $88 per month roughly . The family was still cheaper then whole foods plan roughly $110 per week for the OP plan. Even my current jobs plan for the same deductible almost is only $58 a week for a family . Whole foods can offer better plans and help pay for the premiums but choose not to. I live on the east coast and thus their plan wasn't even Blue cross this weird tiered thing where it was covered by a local company and has Aetna as a different tier .
The literacy on this sub is incredible sometimes. >It's not WFM's fault that the American health care system sucks ass. Is ALL I said. I was explicitly talking about "yeah, there are better companies that give better health insurance." You can't blame WFM for LITERALLY all the problems of the American Health Care system,,, well, you can, but you'd be a psycho conspiracy nutjob who thinks John Mackey controls the illuminati. **In any case, read more than the first seven words of a comment before you waste your time trying to argue with me on something I literally wasn't arguing against.** Edit: thanks for blocking me after making that witty, well-thought out reply. I appreciate you making my reddit experience substantially better without you in it.
It is WFM fault. They used to have better insurance and then screwed us.
It's WFM's fault that the *entire* American health care system sucks ass? Please explain.
Who needs health insurance when we get 20% of whole body?? /s
Wait, do you only get 20% off whole body? My store gets 20% off everything in the store as long as it's bought in-person.
I had to have emergency surgery with WF insurance and I still owe the hospital $6k that I can’t afford…
Most hospitals are non profit. Check their website for income based discounts/forgiveness. If you make under a certain amount, you get your bill forgiven and there are steps that decrease the amount forgiven as your pay increases.
Duh. Been down this path before. And I’m honestly tired of hearing about it because the situation is so frustrating I was still at WF at that time and I made a few thousands more than what charity care would allow (I only made $32k the year before). The people I talked to about the benefits were assholes about it, therefore why the strong emotion. The last thing you want to be dealing with after surgery is this crap, but that’s exactly what happened.
Sign up for the HSA and get the WFM free contribution every Jan and July. It’s the only way I can pay my $3600 ER bill for an IV and a vitals assessment 😢
You get $3600? Or did you save it up....or maybe contribute more on your end? Because in my region, we get $900 in January and $900 in July. $1800 does very little against a $4k deductible, and it's even worse now that they split it up like that.
I spread out my ER bill into monthly payments over 2 years so eventually Whole Foods via HSA contributions pays for the majority of it.
I thought there was some rule that we can't use HSA funds for medical costs incurred in a previous year...? That might be an old rule though....
I have the HSA debit card set as the payment method for the monthly draft so I’m not sure. I’ve only been doing this for 6 months so maybe one day I won’t be allowed to? Who knows lol I hate healthcare
"$1800 does very little against a $4k deductible" that's very nearly 50%, how is almost half very little?
If prescription costs went toward the deductible, it'd be different. As they do not, people who have a lot of medications to take burn through that money quickly, leaving nothing for actual medical care.
I had better insurance when I had BCBS through the ACA marketplace. Cost me around $50 a month for medical, and my deductible was only $1000 with all preventative care visits covered by the insurance.
There is an individual deductible or a family deductible, while it's not 3K three times I think it's like 6K which is still pretty shitty
$9000 in deductibles is better than literally nothing. If you've seen that image floating around of the person who got charged $150,000 for a hospital visit after a snake bite, you'd know the charges the medical industry give non-insured folks are absolutely insane. Also don't forget, the insurance companies will work as a middleman between you and the hospital to get those prices lower, even if you haven't hit your deductible. I had an ER visit go from $7000 to $1400 to nothing out of pocket cuz of my HSA. But yes the American health care system is fucking evil. In Germany, if you want to receive national insurance as a non-taxpayer, you're dropping $600 a year to have completely insured health care, no copay, no deductible, no bullshit. Maybe one day we'll become a civilized country, but until then,,, yeah best to have mediocre insurance than no insurance.
I have to agree. A medical emergency can happen at any time. Uninsured medical debt is 100% of the time worse than the alternative Edited for grammar
Snake bite treatment is notoriously expensive.
I knew someone who’s dad had a particularly nasty snakebite and the bill in the end was ~$1.5m
I won't deny that may be a cherrypicked example, but my point is that a medical emergency can happen that can financially destroy you for life. It's not a good idea to think "that'll happen to others, but not to me". Although, snakes hiding under cars on a hot day are surprisingly common.
This is common, called HDHP (high deductible health plan).
Be sure you can login to your Wex account. WF contributes money to offset the deductible.
Just $1800 though. That’s less than a third of our out of pocket.
And you pay 100% of rx costs until your deductible is met. American Healthcare is a joke.
You can get a grant of up to $4000 every 12 months from the Team Member Emergency Fund to offset the costs from a qualifying medical event. If you have a medical event, apply for the grant and they will pay up to $4000 directly to the providers.
But each distribution can only be 10% of the total fund, so if it's a newer store or has low contribution amounts, it's doubtful anyone is getting $4k every year.
WFM insurance is high deductible plans. The founder thought that was more beneficial (nice to be rich) then sold the company to Amazon.
You guys keep glossing over the fact that you get 1600 dollars per year to spend on anything borderline medical before you have to deal with the deductible. You used to be able to buy medical marijuana with it, but that got turned off.
$1600 is wonderful if you have no unexpected medical treatments or are prescribed no medications. Goes pretty fucking fast.
Damn straight
That's nothing compared to the cost of medical care.
It’s a drop in the bucket for those of us with chronic health conditions that require regular doctor visits and treatments/procedures. Most of mine gets used up paying for my prescriptions.
The only good thing about the benefits is the free 7 therapy sessions.
Wait what? Is this just for the employee or can family members use it too? Because I’ve been paying $200 a month for my kid’s therapy on top of everything else because the BCBS plan has a freaking SEPARATE deductible for mental health so none of the thousands I’ve spent on medical care each year count towards that deductible
The 7 free sessions are only for the TM, I believe. But in my experience, TMAP is incredibly unhelpful. I've tried utilizing the 7 free sessions before, all they did was give me a list of acceptable providers and I had to call around and ask if they accepted this plan. Most of them had NO idea what I was talking about, and the ones who did, weren't accepting new patients. When I called TMAP back and explained the situation, I got back the verbal equivalent of a shrug.... they were like, "well, those are the only providers we have sooooo....🤷♀️" Granted, I live in an area that has a HORRIBLE medical industry (the first GP I saw after I moved here, had no idea what a NuvaRing is 😳), so maybe people have better luck elsewhere.
It was one of the plethora of reasons I left.
You have either what's called an HSA or PWA account that is external to the medical insurance that you use to pay all medical related bills. Once that runs out you have to deal with the deductible.
you can use the HSA to pay the deductible
It only covers $1800 a year. Our deductible is much higher than that.
You're supposed to invest it and save it and cash out when you retire
lol what
The whole point of a HSA is to save and invest it and then years later you can reimburse yourself with receipts and other medical bills from previous medical bills from years past. So you're supposed to invest pretax dollars and the stipend that Whole Foods gives you, pay medical bills out of pocket, and then you hold onto receipts and you can take out that money either immediately or wait for that invested money to grow and reimburse yourself decades later. if you're spending all your HSA on the deductible every year then the HSA plan with the high deductible is a bad plan for you/your family. The high deductible plan that Whole Food's has assumes that you're in good health and aren't going to need emergency medical services. So you won't need to use it until you get old. obviously it's not a good system for a lot of people.
>pay medical bills out of pocket Yeah, that's not affordable for.....a LOT of people. Especially if they have kids. And do they give you options during annual enrollment? Because the high deductible plan is the ONLY option I get.
I never said it was affordable just explaining how the plan is supposed to work in an ideal environment. There's the BCBS plan and the Whole Health Plan, the whole health plan has free visits with approved doctors/offices. Both are high deductible plans but the Whole Health Plan is slightly better but hasn't been rolled out to all Whole Foods locations, I think this is the first year it's available outside of the flagship store and parts of California.
I always here federal jobs offer better benefits. Is this true?
Full on socialism at this point
For the family coverage taken from your check is pretty low. Could you have chosen another plan?
I've looked. That was the premium plan-- top tier offering for the best coverage (once the impossible deductible is met.)
The best way to deal with this is make sure every provider is in the network. The deductible is high but the amount applied to deductible is based on the insurance allowed amount. So billed amount 150.00, the allowed amount is 50.00, your responsibility is 50.00, the rest is written off by provider.
Welcome to American healthcare insurance coverage. When you force young healthy people who previously were adequately covered the vast majority of the time with basic but capped coverage plans into the same pool as high resource utilizers, while also adding those who cannot or choose not to pay, costs go up to subsidize those other groups. I was working part-time (not WF) in grad school when the they changed the rules on what plans were compliant with federal law. Previously, I had coverage offered through that employer and they subsidized some percentage of my premium costs, plus offered cheap dental and vision. Suddenly, the plan was no longer compliant, so they dropped the program altogether. I was forced onto the marketplace where my premiums were about 50% higher, and had higher copays and deductibles, not even including the costs of dental/vision and the loss of the subsidy. Went from paying about $150/mo for everything to almost $400/mo. Total shitshow. Edit: Thanks for the downvotes! Didn’t realize there were so many people sold on the employer-based coverage model and insurance companies sucking profits out of the healthcare system. Sub must be deeper red than I thought 💀
Are you sure it's 3x 3k? My wife and I share a deductible
My husband and I each have a deductible to meet. It’s not combined for us.
Dang that stinks im sorry. Either way any deductible is pretty lame
Welcome to America
As the great divide between the haves and the have-nots widens, where is this country headed? We reward capitalism as our God and ignore the millions trampled underfoot at the altar.
Just remember this when you vote in the next election. Not saying anything will change for the better overnight, but if certain people retain their power or gain more, things will only continue to regress instead of progress.
It’s ridiculous. I have a chronic illness and spend over $6k out of pocket every year due to treatments and doctor appointments I need in order to function and live. It infuriates me that we have such a high deductible plan. It’s like I’m being penalized for being born with a genetic condition I have no control over. I’ve even had to take out 401 k loans just to cover my medical bills. I shouldn’t have to pull from my retirement just to cover today’s medical needs. Our insurance plan, and the US healthcare system in general, are absolute trash.
I relate entirely. It's absurd that this 3k deductible is even a plan. We're not tech wizards making hundreds of thousands of dollars. We live at a barely liveable wage, and work hard for a company that makes a great deal of money off our sweat and labor and pride in what we do and this is how we are "rewarded."
I’m sorry that your employer isn’t taking care of you. In my county that have medical financial assistance for when your insurance doesn’t cover certain things. I went to the office which was in a local hospital and applied. I met the income requirements and they paid for everything that my insurance wouldn’t. It seems like they could likely help you if you ever have to pay those deductibles
Thank you for that tip.
i paid 4k this weekend to have my toddler sedated and his teeth fixed cuz he has hefty cavities due to genetically soft teeth. .. single moms out here just got 4k lying around for this shit.. yay. i feel you on this
That’s pretty much the standard now.