Ask HN: US Health Insurance for Startup Founders?

2 points·jayonsoftware··4 comments

I would like to leave my corporate job and work on a startup idea I have. If I were to do this, my health insurance premium will move from around $300 a month I am paying through the company to $1550 under COBRA. What are my other options?

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Take a look at your states health exchange and get the plan that you think is right for you. I got a silver plan thinking I would save some money but one trip to the emergency room meant that I could have easily bought the gold plan.

If there is Direct Primary Care in your area, that might work. Info:

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/01/direct-prima...

If you are under age 26, you might be able to get coverage through your parents.

Forget about COBRA, it's never affordable. Buy health insurance yourself. If you leave your corporate job, that'll be a "qualifying" life event, although that's not too important since open enrollment is coming up in November.

Don't expect anything comparable to your employer's plan though. I pay about $300 a month for an HMO in California, and the deductible is $10k. It's basically catastrophic coverage.

For a while I had COBRA plans in the $500-$800 a month range for a family in New York State; I knew what my employers were paying and the COBRA rates didn't seem crazy.

The Obamacare exchange in New York is pretty good if you can get the subsidies.

On an individual market, it is almost axiomatic that the price difference between a high deductible and low deductible plan will be the amount of the deductible. It is a textbook case of adverse selection.

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