As a contractor, I have done this exact calculation many times so I can compare full time employment offers when they come. The answer varies greatly depending on your situation, but here's how to calculate it:
- How much is your annual healthcare cost if you don't get it from your employer? A good place to start is healthcare.gov and look up plans that are appropriate for you. If you have expensive health issues, then the calculation is pretty easy because you can count on maxing out your costs, so the calculation is simply monthly premium * 12 + MOOP (max out of pocket). If you are moderately healthy, you may want to keep track of 3 numbers: best case, expected case, and worst case. Example numbers for a family might be $600 * 12 = $7200/yr for best case, perhaps about $9000/yr for the average case if you don't go to the doctor very often, and $7200 + $12,000 MOOP = $19,200/yr for the worst case.
- How much is your annual healthcare cost if you get on your employer's plan? Again, this varies by company, your family situation, and which of your employer's plans you choose. Typically though, your premiums will be lower than if you purchased insurance on the exchange, and the deductible and MOOP options are often lower too. For example, suppose a comparable plan to what you would choose on the exchange is $400/month with a $3000 deductible and $5000 MOOP. In this case your best case is $4800/yr, average case might be $6600, and worst case would be $9800.
So, subtracting the two and you get
- Best case: ($7200 vs $4800) you save $2,400
- Average case: ($9000 vs $6600) you save $2,400
- Worst case: ($19,200 vs $9,800) you save $9,400
I've run many different scenarios with multiple plans and employers, and in my situation with a spouse and 1 child, the employer plans usually ended up saving me approximately $5k per year. So then, to answer your question:
...salary is "100k", "with healthcare", or then "X""with no healthcare" - what do we reckon?
I reckon I would want to be paid $5K more, or $105K. This is purely hypothetical though and assumes there are no other differences except for with or without health insurance. In reality, contractor vs employee will have quite a few other differences. But in general, the calculation varies by company and the more generous the employer's health benefits, the more you need to be compensated to make up for not having it.
Note: the above numbers are very rough, and there are many other factors that come into play, some of which are:
- Depending on your income, a portion of your premiums on the exchange may be subsidized.
- Premiums you pay as part of an employer plan are tax deductible, whereas premiums you pay on the exchange may not be.
- Your employer may offer an HSA and may even contribute to it (free money).
- If you contribute to your HSA through your employer you could reduce your FICA wages by that amount. (Which could save you up to 7% but also might slightly lower your total SS benefit when you retire.)
- Can you get insurance another way? In my case I can get pretty inexpensive health insurance through my spouse's plan, so the true value to me of my employer offering insurance is close to $0. In fact, it actually has a negative value since my spouse's plan has a surcharge if I choose to take her insurance while having the option to take my own.
As a side note, many years ago, during salary talks with a company, I was able to negotiate $2K in additional yearly salary by agreeing not to take the health insurance since I had better insurance through my spouse. Health insurance in the US was much cheaper back then so I think closer to $5K today would be about right and is consistent with my above ballpark calculation. I always wondered what would have happened if I turned around and enrolled the following year. I suspect had I done that they could not have legally lowered my salary due to my breaking my promise, but I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't get a raise that year either.