I elect to have none, and pay a yearly penalty to the federal government as a result. I earn and save money on my own to cover medical expenses. I view payments to a 3rd party who then bank their business model on my not needing payouts as a form of gambling on human welfare, which I deem immoral.
Ask HN: Freelancers in the US: What do you do for health insurance?
101–106 of 106 posts
Re: Ask HN: Freelancers in the US: What do you do for health insurance?
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have an unhealthy fish. What brand would you recommend?
I can't recommend anything, as I am not a veterinarian. You need to do your own research. Fortunately, the web makes this rather easy. Try searching for "aquarium antibiotics" and refine your search terms as necessary.
Fishflex FTW....for fish of course. It's even better than fishmox :P
Re: Ask HN: Freelancers in the US: What do you do for health insurance?
#103I am male, early thirties, married with children. We have a high-end ACA-compliant plan purchased directly from Florida Blue. At almost $1600/month, it's really freakin' expensive. But we have various health issues between us that make us uninsurable for any reasonable amount via individual plans, and that also mean we use a lot of health care. Prior to ACA, we had my wife and kids on a COBRA plan out of Maryland fro…
This is very interesting to me. It was my understanding that the rates were no longer jacked up, even if you had "various health issues". This is called Medical Underwriting and I thought it was forbidden by the ACA. It could be a state-by-state issue. Perhaps Florida is different? When you applied for insurance, did they acquire your medical history? 1. http://kff.org/health-reform/perspective/how-buying-insuranc...…
I implied a slightly scrambled chronology. To clarify, we kept the expensive COBRA coverage from my wife's old job in MD, because prior to ACA there were no good individual insurance options for her and the kids. Now, with ACA, we have an individual plan purchased from Florida Blue. It is very expensive, but not much more so than the two separate plans we had, and the better coverage, less confusion from the insurance being out of state, and having everyone on the same deductible and OOP max make it worthwhile.
Re: Ask HN: Freelancers in the US: What do you do for health insurance?
#104I elect to have none, and pay a yearly penalty to the federal government as a result. I earn and save money on my own to cover medical expenses. I view payments to a 3rd party who then bank their business model on my not needing payouts as a form of gambling on human welfare, which I deem immoral.
While I agree the whole system is immoral, I have to ask what will you do if you have a critical injury or disease? Lots of things can happen outside of your control and healthcare is an insurance against going bankrupt.
Re: Ask HN: Freelancers in the US: What do you do for health insurance?
#105I became a freelance 13 years ago. On COBRA for a while. Looked for IEEE group insurance but HI wasn't covered then. The insurance company (HMSA) offered a switch to individual plan. It wasn't too bad initially ($350/mo for me and my wife, HMO, $500/$1000 ded.) But then the premium soared and also we had a kid; at peak it was $1050/mo without drug, vision and dental. I learned antibiotics are pretty expensive. After…
Does that $650 per month include subsidies from the government for low income? Because that is far cheaper than what I received as a quote on healthcare.gov. For my wife and kids it was $1,100 per month with a $12,000 deductible. With that plan my out-of-pocket expenses would be $25,000 per year before the insurance paid a nickel! 86% of people who sign up with Obamacare received a subsidy 1 from the government for l…
No, it doesn't include subsidies (ED: I mean, we don't get subsidies). I signed up directly with the provider. Your number looks egregious. I wonder how that kind of plan works, though, with ACA's 80/20 rule.
Re: Ask HN: Freelancers in the US: What do you do for health insurance?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
What Beached is saying is that he's not driving a car yet . You don't have to pay for car insurance when you don't have a car.
This^
Unintended pregnancies exist, and people have sex. But you're not going to get pulled over and cited for sexing without a license, because it tends to happen in private. So how should an insurance company verify that someone isn't having sex that could result in an immediate need for prenatal care? What happens when you're allowed to opt out, but your contraceptive fails and you have a kid anyway? The risk of ectopic pregnancies and/or miscarriages is high pretty early on, and many of those present in the ER where it's ludicrously expensive to even breathe the air.
How about diabetes or mental health care, should you be allowed to opt out of that coverage it you're sure™ it's not going to happen to you? Can women opt out of most everything to do with the prostate?
On top of all of this, as another commenter explained, the marginal cost of prenatal/pregnancy/postnatal coverage isn't even all that high. The cost of managing the opt-out would probably destroy any savings you were hoping to realize.