If you are a white-collar federal worker or government retiree, your health insurance premiums next year will run anywhere from $1,200 to nearly $6,000. Most singles will pay within a range of $$1,650 to $2,400. That’s for self-only coverage and that is the employee/retiree share. The premiums themselves are much higher, but the government pays more than 70 percent of the average premium.

The largest number of feds and retirees are in one of the two Blue Cross-Blue Shield options. Self only premiums for a single person in the standard plan next year will cost you $2,370 and in the basic option the premium to you will be $1,650. So what, other than the difference in premiums, is the difference? For many people, the answer is not much.

There are also excellent buys with GEHA standard, in the Foreign Service plan (open to feds in many agencies) and with the American Postal Workers Union and National Association of Letter Carriers plans, which, by the way, are open to all feds.

Feds who like health maintenance organizations have some excellent choices, and good deals there too. A self-only plan in 2015 will cost you $1,180 in premiums with Kaiser standard, and just a little more than that with Aetna basic, CareFirst standard and other HMOs.

Some high deductible plans come with a savings account, which the plan gives you, that you can use to pay bills, or keep.

So, how do you know which plan is best for you? Turn your radio, and your computer on. Today at 10 a.m. on our Your Turn radio show, Walton Francis, the guy who wrote the health insurance shopping book, is our guest for the full hour. You can listen today live at www.federalnewsradio.com. Or on 1500 am. Or anytime because the show is archived on our homepage.

In many federal agencies, workers can shop online and on government-time. That’s because their agencies have made the CHECKBOOK guide available to them for free. To see if your agency has subscribed for you, click here.

So listen today and remember a couple of basic rules. You want to be sure that your doctor is going to be in the network for the plan you choose for 2015. You want to be sure that the plan has good catastrophic coverage, limiting your out-of-pocket costs in a worst case scenario. Be aware of the 5-year rule, which says you must have FEHBP coverage for the 5 years prior to retirement to have coverage in retirement. Finally, if you are a retiree, do you need Medicare Part B coverage? Walton will answer them all today. If you pick the right plan, he says you will save a minimum of $1,000 next year in premiums and out-of-pocket costs.

NEARLY USELESS FACTOID:

By Michael O’Connell

The most expensive piece of U.S. paper currency ever sold at auction was the 1890 Grand Watermelon $1,000 bill, which one private collector sold to another in 2006 for $2,225,000. The bill is known as the “Grand Watermelon” because the three green-striped zeros on the reverse side in the number 1,000 resemble watermelons.

Source: Marshu.com

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