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Comment by stevesearer | Hacker News Reader

If you don't qualify for any subsidy, you should definitely just purchase health insurance directly through the carrier.

I initially purchased insurance via CoveredCA (no subsidy) and they just acted as a middleman between my family and Blue Shield without providing any benefit.

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Thanks that's great advice. It seems there is absolutely zero discounts using CoveredCA when you earn more than $50,000 a year.

Use your 'company' to pay for your expenses and draw less than $50,000 as salary. Problem solved.

If I use my company credit card, how does that help? Both scenarios would be tax write offs correct?

You said that you need to be making < $50,000 to be considered for a discount from coveredCa. If you're using your company to pay for your expenses, and you draw less than 50G in personal income. You should be eligible for a discount.

I have a 100% ownership LLC, so my personal income is combined with business income.

I think what the previous poster is getting at is that in the US it may benefit you to have a more byzantine vehicle for your work. Such as an SCorp.

It'll take a bit more research and possibly some extra filing but you may benefit from it. In exchange for moving your income to a more employee like arrangement you'll be able to move things like this directly above the fold in some cases.

Or LLC filing as SCorp for federal tax purposes. Although that's the sort of thing you'll want to look at the 1040 rules for.

Also known as tax fraud.

For CoveredCA, does anyone know if capital gains count towards $50k? Or 'just' your ordinary income?

Yes, looks like it includes all forms of income - capital gains, dividends, etc. However, it is using the MAGI so you could potentially use a solo 401(k) to defer income and get under that threshold. http://insuremekevin.com/type-income-counted-covered-califor...

This might help: http://www.cahba.com/blog/2013/11/magi.html

I believe you can't pay for employees' individual plans using company money because they might qualify for subsidies. Having taxpayers subsidize your company benefits is a no-no, so you'd need a group plan once you offer health insurance for employees.

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