Insurance at your first job

Benefits are an important piece of any job. Whether you figuring out how much money to put into your 401k or you are selecting your first health plan, everything matters. Most companies offer some sort of the following:

Health Insurance
Life Insurance
Short Term Disability (STD)
401k
Paid Time Off (PTO) or Vacation Time/Sick Days

My advice to you as the employee would be to take your time deciding on the specific health plan offered. Most companies today offer what is known as a base and a buy up plan. Typically the buy-up plan will be some sort of co-payment plan. What this means is initially when you go to the doctor you will pay $10,$20, $30 or some other fixed amount for the initial visit. There are usually set amount if a prescription is needed as well. Typically prescriptions (Rx) are in the range of $5, $10, $15 or $20 or again some fixed amount often in a tiered structure.

The base plan or the plan which the company often contributes towards is more and more becoming a High Deductible Health Plan. With these plans there are no initially set co-pays the employee pays the True Cost of the doctor visit. For example if you doctor charges $150 for a visit that is the amount you are going to pay. High Deductible health plans usually have an initial deductible of 1k, 2k, 3k, 4k, 5k or something of that nature. Wellness visits are still covered at 100% and in some cases prescriptions are covered on a copay basis, but in other plans you pay the true cost of the prescription. My feeling is to go with the deductible plan if you are young, healthy and can withstand the threshold if something was to happen. Again, remember your expenses are typically covered at 100% after your reach the deductible. For more information on health plans visit the following link:

http://www.ahrq.gov/consumer/insuranceqa/