There are six great companies in the Los Angeles health insurance market that East Coast Health Insurance is proud to offer, including Aetna, Cigna, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California, HealthNet, and Kaiser Permanente.
Actually with all of these companies offering plans you might think picking a plan in Los Angeles would be more difficult than treading water in a pool of acid, but it isn’t as mostly all of the companies here have slimmed down their plan offerings to only the most logical and straightforward plans, and in fact I only found 87 total available plans here compared to Florida (where I live where there are probably 300). However, health insurance is way more expensive in Los Angeles than Fort Lauderdale and similar places.
In any case so which Los Angeles health insurance plan is the most attractive? Let review the offerings from each carrier first (in alphabetical order) and then pick out the best values. I ran sample quotes on a 35 year old male in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Aetna Plans
Aetna offers PPO plans in L.A. and they are pretty typical plans compared to the rest of country and mostly include office visits and prescription coverage before the deductible. For a 35 year old male I chose the Managed Choice Open Access Value 2500 which came in at $166 per month and had only a $2500 deductible and included a few office visit copays before the deductible. In HSA plans (Health Savings Accounts) I chose the High Deductible 3500 which has a $3500 deductible and 10% coinsurance which is pretty reasonable for my demographic in Los Angeles.
For the sake of argument I chose the Aetna Managed Choice 3500 to compare to the other companies as it seemed to be the only plan that all the companies offered and for me it costs $250 a month. This plan is very comprehensive and covers all office visits and prescriptions before the deductible.
Anthem Blue Cross of California
There are 2 Blue Cross & Blue Shields in the same city one from Anthem, a large chain of state run independent Blue Crosses and the independent Blue Shield of California. Both of these companies are constantly in the news because of rate increases which is not really their fault. Health insurance premiums are not dictated by the insurance company alone, but are a factor of health care costs. Obviously, if a company wants to raise premiums exorbitantly they could do so in the past, but eventually the policy holders would flee and they would get a ton of bad publicity. These Blue Crosses has unusually low premiums in the first place and had to increase them to reflect cost factors at the time and are now seemingly in line with other carriers, on the other hand they are no longer the price leaders either in many demographics.
So from Anthem I chose the Premier Plus 3500 which is a great plan all around and is about 20% less expensive (at $204) than the same Aetna plan (Aetna Managed Choice 3500) and by far is the best choice between the two. So lets check out the Blue Shield plan now.
Blue Shield of California
Cigna
Cigna is fairly competitive in California and is a better value than Aetna for sure, but comes up short at $209 compared to the Blue Shield of California plan, however it might be in 2nd place when compared to the Anthem Blue Cross plan (only because the deductible is $500 less for $4 more). The plan I am referring to from Cigna is called the CA Open Access 3000.
HealthNet
HealthNet has some awesome plans and to be honest I would probably chose their HMO plans if I lived in California (I like HMO’s because they cover so many things with first dollar coverage), but they don’t have a plan to compare to the ones we have been discussing.
In any case the plan from HealthNet that I would choose is their Valuenet NG for $119 per month though the deductible is $4k and the coinsurance is 35%. Depending on your medical expenses however, if you are healthy this plan will keep your medical costs the lowest year in and year out except for the year you have a catastrophe for example.
Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente offers simply the best plans in California at the best premiums, but like HealthNet its HMO coverage (which is usually more expensive for females who might be better off thusly with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of California plans).
Their Deductible 40/2000 plan is the second most expensive on this page, but is also by far the most comprehensive. Everything is covered and the deductible is only 2k with 0% coinsurance meaning that after the deductible Kaiser Permanente covers all your medical expenses. Remember though with HMO’s unless it is an emergency you simply can’t go outside the network.
