My husband is self employed and I worked for a 4 person company that didn't offer health insurance through the company until 2 years ago. My boss didn't want to be bothered with it and just gave an allowance for each employee. We paid about $2k/month for a family of 4 with a $3k (indiv)/$6k (family) deductible going direct to the insurance company. Then, at the end of 2016 we found out we wouldn't even be able get a similar policy at all for 2017. A decent PPO wasn't even offered in Virginia. It would have cost us about $2400/month for a worse policy going direct or through "The Plan". So I convinced my boss to get a small group policy. We have 4 employees in it and I was able to get $1500k (indiv)/$3k (family) deductible for a total of about $1900/month. Big difference for health insurance offered through employer. That makes me angry.

Luckily, my boss pays for me, and I have one kid who is now out of college and employed with his own health insurance, so my portion of the monthly bill is now down to $1k/month (for husband and daughter). I feel like I got a raise! On a separate note, my son's health insurance through his new company is a better policy than ours and his contribution is about $25/month. He could have had a $0 contribution choice but it was an HMO. I hope I have helped him understand how lucky he is.