[bryan11]

Stories like this are scary. My employer based health insurance has an $18,000 deductible before it starts to cover 70% of approved, in-network bills. One visit to ER could easily cost me $20,000. A simple doctor visit can range from $150 to $1000. The effect is that any doctor visit is viewed as a last resort option.

[lotsofpulp]

Your employer is screwing the employees via a terrible grandfathered plan. Any new insurance plan after ACA would have a maximum deductible equal to out of pocket maximum, which for 2019 was $15.8k for non HSA and $13.5k with HSA.

https://www.uhc.com/employer/news/consultant/irs-sets-new-20...

https://www.cigna.com/assets/docs/about-cigna/informed-on-re...

But I’ve never heard of a deductible actually being set equal to out of pocket maximum or even anything close to it. Even the bronze family plans on healthcare.gov had deductibles of a few thousand.