Find affordable health insurance
My husband and I have long dreamed of being able to quit our respective jobs and spend time working on various open source projects and personal interests. (I know we’re not the only ones!) We’re on track to pay off our house in not too many more years, but one of the things we’ve been concerned about is health insurance. Subsidized by an employer (as it is now), the premiums are relatively low and all is well. But the rates we’ve seen when you go it alone are brutal. Good news, though! Recently I’ve discovered two potential solutions.
The first is eHealthInsurance. Using this free, online service, I can find out what plans are available to me as an individual and compare coverage, rates, and deductibles. I found one that would probably work well for my husband and I that runs just over $100/month. It has a high deductible but is an eligible plan for HSA (which I care a lot about). This makes sense for our family because we don’t go to the doctor very often, but when we really need medical care, it’s likely to soar well above the deductible (this is based on our lifestyle—prime example being the rock wall accident that broke my husband’s back and ended up costing $100k+—yay, insurance!).
The other option that interests me is Ebay’s Health Insurance Plan as reported by Jim. It’s a little more work (you have to do something to qualify for it) but as the time gets closer, I’ll definitely be looking into it to find out if it’s substantially better than my other options. It would be pretty simple to qualify (at least at the lower tiers), so this will certainly be something to consider.
Are you insured through an employeer or on your own? I’d love any tips you might have to offer, either way.
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Thanks for the link Sarah, I’m insured through my employer. My girlfriend just went through this as she was joining a staffing agency around here. One big problem you might run into is “pre-existing condition” because your husband broke his back, they may offer you insurance but deny coverage for back injuries for a time period (with $100k payouts, that may be a long long time).
Good luck!
Yeah, that’s definitely something I’ll have to check out. It’s been a few years and he’s actually significantly healthier now than he was before he broke his back, but I’m sure there are plenty of technicalities to get caught on. The way he “plays”, though, he definitely needs insurance!
We are currently insured through my employer but more and more I am chafing at it. Even with them paying half of the premiums, I’m still paying out more than 300 a month to cover us (just me and my husband now, but we have to pay for the family plan). Add to that the deductibles (not quite a thousand, all together) and the Flex money I take out, and we’re spending a pretty penny on healthcare. I’ve been pestering them to get a plan that can be used with an HSA, but they will not offer one for 2006–maybe 2007? But by that point maybe we’ll be brave enough to go it alone. I was very tempted to do that this year, but fear stopped me. I was thinking, “Did I not understand all the issues? What if there’s something you’re not considering?”