Last year's thread.

Has anyone ever been on medicaid? I haven't and don't know anything about how that works. I live in IL and according to the internet you need to have an income less than $16.6k to qualify. Right now I'm at $15.9k for the year and unemployed.

I'm kinda sick of getting buttraped on health insurance. What's the penalty for not having insurance or medicaid?

#poorlyfe

Beginning in 2019 the penalty for not having coverage is going away, so you would not have to worry about being penalized. But for your situation, I would probably recommend getting the medicaid coverage if you qualify.

I believe the cost should be minimal to zero (not exactly positive) but it should cost you way WAY less than paying for you own plan out of pocket.

If you qualified to get a subsidy, you would be able to get an ACA (obamacare) plan, but with income of $16.6k I don't believe that is high enough to qualify for a subsidized ACA plan.

I think your best bet sounds like the medicaid plan imho.

Go plug your income and zip code on healthcare.gov and see your options. It might tell you to get medicaid. FPL level is like 12k though. If you are above FPL you qualify for on exchange plans.

If you are eligible for the exchange you may be able to get a Bronze plan for free. Depends on your state.

Income below 138% FPL: If your income is below 138% FPL and your state has expanded Medicaid coverage, you qualify for Medicaid based only on your income.

Income below 100% FPL: If your income falls below 100% FPL and your state hasn't expanded Medicaid coverage, you won't qualify for either income-based Medicaid or savings on a Marketplace health insurance plan. You may still qualify for Medicaid under your state's current rules.

Start with this link if you're just exploring options:
https://www.healthcare.gov/see-plans

I'm looking at 650 a month for two adults (M 33, F 28) for a plan with a 10k deductible per person. This means I get to pay ~7800 up front for the right to cap my medical losses at 10k lol. It has literally no services before the deductible is reached.

Given that we're somewhat healthy and our medical costs as uninsured people last year were <3k I can't see any reason why I would buy health insurance this year.

If something really serious goes wrong I guess that's what medical tourism is for.

Technically you're paying $7800 to cap your losses at $17800 - and $27,800 if you both need major care, for example a car accident together.

You're correct of course. It's a 13k family annual out of pocket max, so more like ~20k max loss. This is if the worst imaginable thing happens. Given that we have enough wealth to move our care anywhere on planet earth I'm not seeing a good reason to get ripped off here.

Was the $700 each penalty causing you to go the other way on that decision?

38M non-tobacco user.

Mine is substantially lower than last year. Essentially deductible/max oop for Bronze has risen ~20% to $7900.00 and premium is 36% lower.

It's still seems like a bad deal.....~4200.00/year with an ~8000.00 deductible but much improved I would say.

Even the Gold plan is nearly 20% lower than Bronze plan last year. And it has a sane deductible.

I'll look at everything in detail later but it's so much better I feel like there's been an error somewhere. Like somewhere buried in the fine print it reads....lol thx for the money this doesn't actually cover anything. sucker.

Sure, but do you always get to move your care. Bustup car accident with hundreds of thousands in surgery needed will put you out. Then there's burns:

If this worries you, the best structure is to have your assets in a company/trust that's untouchable in bankruptcy, and self insure. That's a good idea anyway with a sue-happy US and divorce rates >50% and "common law marriage" laws in many Western countries.

What state are you in?

Health insurance for someone like you(im in a similar situation) is basically bankruptcy insurance in case you get in a bad accident.

Im paying 350 a month for a plan with a deductible of 6500 which i wont reach without some serious ER visits. I would say im probably way better off just planning for bankruptcy if I get in a bad accident than paying 4k a year.

For my state/area BCBS (and one other company) removed the cap on out of network max. Has anyone else seen this?

So hypothetically if I got into a bad accident was taken to a hospital and had surgeries etc that were out of network I could be really exposed. What's actually ****ed is you can be in an in network hospital but some doctors are out of network and can charge you huge fees.

This is one reason the plan dropped for me from $380 to $325. It's a 5600 deductible and the cheapest option. 30, M.

For this reason some people I know are going with a farm bureau plan that is has lower deductibles and much cheaper $125-150 range. They are not ACA and can deny applications. There is also a 6 or 12 mo waiting period for pre existing conditions. I would have done that but I had to use my insurance significantly this year for a few weird things, and while nothing was diagnosed I don't feel comfortable playing a word/lawyer game if some disease/condition showed itself this year.

GA

I just wanted to say that I think the way the medical, pharma, & health insurance industries work in the US such complete BS. Its one of the worst things we've got going on in our country.

BoredSocial put it best, LOL @ paying $7.8K to cap your annual losses at $10k (or $20k, w.e.).

But so long as it persists (again this is BS) but if you do pay for your health care you will pay an inflated price. Insurance companies basically call BS on the hospital mark ups. The hospital says fine, what will you pay us? The insurance company says, this much, and its a done deal.

I cant write more, I am getting annoyed just thinking about it. We have so much to fix in this country...

Nope. 1400 isn't enough to get us to spend 500% more on also nothing.

You're all also assuming that they would actually be able to collect whatever they billed in case of a major emergency. Medical debt is very hard to collect. There would be a settlement for a fraction of the official price.

This is why I've gotten VERY good prices on medical expenses this year as long as I was willing to pay up front. The wife and I have been seeing doctors as needed for stuff and have generally been paying 50-75 bucks a visit up front rather than the 2-300 the insurance companies claim to get billed.

This system is super screwed up, but being good at purchasing is a big part of why I make what I make. There are a very narrow band of potential medical problems that are a) ruinously expensive and b) insanely time sensitive. I am fortunately in a position where I could take a mid five figure loss and feel significantly better about it than I would paying this money for this bet. It's just trash.

I think if youve got permanent severe burns then 1.6 million in medical costs are the least of your worries at that point. Honestly might be worth assisted suicide at that point.

So no insurance needed, because suicide? Solid life skills bro.

And burns are prolonged torture during the healing/treatment process but they can do a decent job these days if you don't mind ending with skin that looks like a patchwork lizard.

I think the fact that your going to be in constant pain and have limited mobility for the rest of your life plus the lizard skin justifies it. Whats so horrible about death? Why are you so afraid of it?

I think someone forgot to pay the utility bill. just got dark in here...

Will be paying $365/mo for PPO plan for BCBS 8k deductable i believe. First time ive had health insurance the last few years. I'm very novice with this, but I read that PPO will have you covered if you go out of network? Idk.