Step 1: watch this video: How Health Insurance Works, and familiarize yourself with the terms “copayment”, “deductible”, “coinsurance”, “out-of-pocket maximum” in health insurance plans. 

Step 2: Read this table that contains the medical insurance plans NJ state government offers to its employees (including Rutgers faculty and staff) in 2020: NJ_state_medial_insurance_2020.pdf

Focus on the following eight plans: NJ Direct 15, NJ Direct 1525, NJ Direct 2030, NJ Direct 2035, Horizon HMO, Horizon OMINA, NJ Direct HD 1500, and NJ Direct 4000. As shown in the file, these plans differ in their coverage terms (i.e., copay, deductible, coinsurance, etc.). 

Go to this website of premium estimator: https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions/hb-percentage20-monthly.shtml , and check the premium of these eight plans. 

When you enter the information, assume your annual salary is $100,000 (step one), and your payroll schedule is “Monthly” (step two). Assume you would like to have single coverage for medical insurance (step three), and single coverage for employee prescription drug plan (step four). Click “Calculate Contribution” in step five to see the premium. (Note that in order to obtain the premium information of a plan, you need to choose the specific plan in step three.) 

Step 3: Answer the following two questions:

Question 1: Which insurance plan (among the eight plans listed above) has the most expensive premium based on the premium estimator?  Which plan has the least expensive premium? 

Question 2: Which plan would you like to choose and why? (This is open-ended and there is no right or wrong answer. Feel free to google the definitions of HMO, PPO, tiered plans, and in- vs. out-of-network