Deductible Health Insurance Explained - How much do I pay out of pocket?

Wondering what a health insurance deductible is? In this video, I'll break down exactly what a deductible is. Deductible is such a difficult word. I'll break down exactly what a deductible is. A health insurance deductible is the amount I pay out of pocket for health care before my insurance starts to pitch in. If my plan has a $2,000 deductible, I'm responsible for covering the first $2,000 of my medical costs each year. After that, my insurance steps in to cover a portion of the costs. I'll give you some tips for choosing between plans that have low deductibles or high deductibles. At the very end, I'll talk about the timeline deductibles run on. Let's talk about low deductibles versus high deductible plans. During open enrollment, I can choose between plans with high deductibles with low monthly premiums or plans with low deductibles with high monthly premiums. One year, I chose a plan with a high deductible and a low monthly premium and thought, wow, I am saving so much money with my insurance plan every month because I don't have to Later, when I got sick and went to the doctor, I realized I had to pay for the entire cost of the visit because I hadn't met my deductible yet. Some people choose high deductible plans with lower monthly premiums because they are generally healthy and are comfortable with the risk of paying higher out-of-pocket costs when they receive care. Other people may choose a plan with a higher premium and a lower deductible because it makes their health care costs more predictable, especially if they have ongoing medical needs. Here's a tip for how deductibles work for families. Some plans have embedded deductibles, which means that each family member will have their own individual deductible amount that must be met. In rare cases, plans will have a non-embedded deductible, which is a collective deductible for the whole family that must be met before the plan starts pitching in. Last tip about deductibles. Deductibles are active from January 1st to December 31st, so they reset every year at the end of the calendar year. This means whatever you pay for health coverage during the calendar year applies to the deductible until January 1st when it all goes back to zero.