re: Healthcare.gov/ Obamacare question

I have applied for both Medicare and State disability. About 2 months ago. Nothing back yet. Just looking at my options when my short term disability from my employer runs out in February

I currently have Marketplace insurance. A Bronze BCBS plan. Premium is $1500, the advanced tax credit makes my portion $350 per month and I overestimated my income to be safe I probably qualify for even more.

I make around 145-150k per year and I put 160k on the application because I can be paid overtime. I believe married with three kids helped a lot.


It’s more affordable than my previous fortune 50 employer, and the coverage is better as well.


On a personal, non political level I’m glad this option existed because it enabled me to take a very lucrative W2 contract position while keeping my family insured.

Edit: saw your situation is vastly different to mine. Prayers for you and family.

quote:

---

Not working nor do I plan on going back. I have cancer and am currently going through chemo

---

quote:

---

My cancer is terminal so I won’t be spending that last year or two of my life working. I’m 60.

---

Very sorry to hear about your diagnosis and your current situation. Here are a few things that may not be well known:

1) if you’re near a university center, you may qualify for discounted or free care based on your situation. Call the billing department, explain your situation, and see if they can direct you to anyone who may be able to assist you.

2) Medicaid is a state run program that is federally funded. It varies pretty widely on how to qualify, but there is a chance you qualify currently based on current income, given you won’t be working anymore. They also have an odd scenario available where you don’t currently qualify but have a lot of upcoming expenditures and will allow you to “spend down” to Medicaid (they’ll basically let you qualify after you spend an amount of your current savings).


3) even for profit doctors will, on occasions like this, be willing to see you for free because they know the situation sucks. Maybe don’t necessarily expect it, but explain to the doctor you don’t know what to do, and they’ll likely either be willing to help or know a way to get you to a place that can if they aren’t able to do so themselves.

4) many drugs have cheap alternatives or assistance if you cannot afford them. Do an online search for the drug + “patient assistance” and read all you can, often the first 2-3 links will be to several assistance programs. You may need a letter from a doctor or have a fair amount of paperwork filled out, but there are generally ways to get what you need. Unfortunately, you will have to be your own advocate on this front, but it is pretty rare to not be able to get something in a situation like this.




Good luck.

Yes; though not sure how much in subsidy credits you'll get. In the link below, there is a bullet point about if your job based coverage is "affordable" or not. If the cheapest plan costs more than 9.12% of household income then you should be good.
https://www.healthcare.gov/have-job-based-coverage/options/

Healthcare.gov has been updated to show 2024 prices now too. You can put in all your info and it will tell what it will cost you w/o actually signing up:
https://www.healthcare.gov/see-plans/#/

I plan on quitting my job sometime soon. I have short term disability until the first week of Feb. Trying to figure out when I need to let them know. I am still waiting on Medicaid and SSA disability applications to come back to see if/how much financial assistance it will get there.

quote:

---

The whole point of the marketplace was to get people coverage who had no coverage.

---

The whole point of the marketplace was to come up with a plan so expensive, with no pre-existings, and the ability to hop in and out, that it would lead to socialized medicine in the next administration. It is an extraordinarily inefficient product with costs hidden by massive annual taxes and disproportionately escalated rates.

I just put my family’s info into the gov healthcare website just to see what the premium would be since everyone is saying it is so high… For a married couple in early 30s with 1 dependent and household income around 250, the premiums on the gold plan were $500/mo.

This is less than we pay our employers together now for what looks like better coverage. Am I missing something? Why is this more affordable than insurance through our employers? Seriously thinking about getting on this.

quote:

---

Am I missing something?

---

Nope. Though being in your 30s is probably why it's cheaper. If you were in your 50-60s probably much higher.