[Kate]

I keep hearing horror stories about health insurance—endless paperwork, denied claims, unexpected bills—and it’s honestly overwhelming. But it got me wondering: is it *always* bad?

Has anyone out there had a genuinely positive experience with their health insurance?

I’m talking about a plan that truly worked well for you and your family—good coverage, reasonable costs, responsive customer service, the kind of thing that makes you feel *relieved* rather than stressed.

If you’ve found a health insurance provider or plan that you’re happy with, I’d really love to hear about it. What made it great? How did it support you when you needed it?

Was it employer-provided, government-subsidized, or something you found on your own?

I know experiences vary a lot, but I’m hoping to hear that there are some good stories out there. If you have one, please share—it might help others looking for better options too.

Thanks in advance!

[Melissa]

My husband is a school bus driver and our family insurance through his job is really good

[Annie]

We have excellent health insurance–my husband is a medical physician at a major medical center. Six years ago, he had a very unexpected health crisis that lasted for almost one year.

I knew ZERO about his generous workplace benefits.

Thankfully there were no hiccups at the time–I was so overwhelmed with stress I wouldn’t have had any emotional bandwidth leftover to learn the minutiae.

In retrospect as I’m now learning about personal finance, I can appreciate that after a modest annual deductible, all of his MANY medical tests, appointments, medications were fully paid by insurance without me having to fight for it one bit.

Short-term disability and long-term disability kicked in seamlessly which meant his income stream never ceased.

I suspect his closest M.D. colleagues handled this with HR to make sure these transitions were smooth.

Ultimately, he made a full recovery and has been happily working full-time ever since.

On my end, a nice unexpected perk has been that this health insurance also covered my out-of-network holistic dentist.

My dentist office said they’re not covered by insurance, but each time I submit my dentist payment for reimbursement, our insurance covers it.

So, I tried to submit reimbursement for my functional medicine appt, which is definitely out-of-network, but our insurance denied it.

Was worth trying!

[Meyer]

Spouse has zero premium, self coverage only ($6300 deductible). I pay $35 per paycheck for my own $1500 HDHP.

My job then gives me a “credit” for my spouse electing their own coverage. So, we basically have zero net premium for both of us. And I max the HSAon both.

It’s a great position to be in but also shows how messed up our system is.

Some people can’t afford their daily meds and I pay nothing and get access to triple tax advantaged accounts

[Rick]

I don’t feel like healthcare has ever been an issue. For me individually or for my family.

Now I haven’t loved premium payments at times, based on employer designed plan options.

I definitely think our doctors offices are run poorly for my personal needs but there is usually one nice or apologetic person at the doctor office that seemingly make it just tolerable enough for me to not change doctors.

I even found the transition from copay trained healthcare to hdhp+hsa far easier than expected and over the many years so incredibly “profitable” in keeping my money to use as I want (for healthcare).

And now I am a big fan of hdhp+hsa not only for the $ financial wins for me but also, it’s not so gentle nudge to be proactive on healthcare prevention via diet and exercise instead of being reliable on sickcare that is sadly the US “health system”.

Now I have no chronic issues. I did have a back issue that led to a far from fun back surgery.

But otherwise my uses and those of my family were just usual cold/flu, sprained ankle or shoulder, etc type healthcare uses. So, I am sure that has shaped my feeling on healthcare.

So bad experiences? No not really. Tolerable yes.

[John]

Working for a public benefit org we are covered under the state gov employee health insurance plan – has actually been terrific all along.

Granted, in our org we’re not getting heavy hitter salaries and have had multiple successive years where our raises were low-balled so that’s a consideration.

But the health insurance has been terrific – especially after my wife was diagnosed with cancer and we found that although Memorial Sloan Kettering is not in our plan, it is under the umbrella of our “Centers of Excellence” benefit.

That ultimately meant pretty darn near 100% coverage with only minor copays on related non-Sloan appointments.

Keeping tally on her appointments and charges, after several years of treatment, regular chemo shots etc, that cost ended somewhere nearing the $1 million range.

So, we’re quite thankful.

[Katie]

It truly depends on where you work or get your insurance. I work for a health insurance company and see Cadillac plans and total $hit plans.

I also don’t see how much the employee pays.

I haven’t taken the employee plan since I got married since Tricare is better, but that’s not a plan that you can go out and buy.

[Krystal]

Self employed here. When Obama care was introduced a long time ago we were no longer able to afford the monthly premiums as a family of six so I researched everything and we ended up going with a health share called Christian healthcare ministries.

They’ve been in business for 40 years. We pay approximately $800 a month for our family and it’s $1000 per incident per year, but all the kids are combined into one incident and we have four children.

Hopefully that makes sense but that was the best for us.

I started keeping track of what we were saving per month compared to our wellMark plan we used to have and when it reached over $200,000 in savings I quit keeping track.

those savings are combined of monthly premium savings, the high deductible savings that we would’ve paid when our kids needed surgeries and the monthly referral credits that I got for signing up over 30 families and friends.

[Ron]

I consider my health insurance to be great because I hardly have needed to use it. I’m 62, single and have an ACA plan.

I’ve had years with $0-$1500 deductible, but this year it is $8K.

I haven’t spent anything this year and don’t expect to have to as I had my last check up December last year.

Since leaving work health insurance in early 2014 at 51 I’ve spent a total of <$500 over the 11 years on all health insurance premiums, copays and labs.

[Author]

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