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Comment by ridaj | Hacker News Reader

Practical question: if you're in the US, how do you deal with health insurance?

ACA (ObamaCare) is available. Your monthly cost for top tier coverage can be as low as ~$5 a month for a family of 4.

The qualifying income cap is based on you anticipated "Modified Adjusted Gross Income". They don't count assets. This means that if you may have losses that bring your income for the year down to the income limits, then you can honestly say that and get subsidies. If you currently don't have any income, but you can imagine yourself earning the minimum income in the calendar year, then you can claim that. (If you are lower than the minimum for ACA, you will get MediCal for free)

For example, in California, for a family of 4, if you can honestly estimate that after potential losses and potential earnings, your modified adjusted gross income would be between $39,750 - $53,000, you can get top tier coverage for ~ $5 a month, no co-pay, very low prescription costs.

If your situation changes (you start working again) you just notify the state and either pay a higher rate or cancel and use your new company's plan.

Search for "2022 ACA Income limits [your state]"

Here is the 2022 chart for California: https://www.coveredca.com/pdfs/FPL-chart.pdf

Thanks for the very informative answer!

The cost of healthcare in the U.S. is the only reason that I don't take (often higher per hour paying) contract roles. Also, i'm a great wingman for sales but not great as sales lead or generating sales, else I'd have gone into business for myself. (And, no, skipping health insurance is not an option at all for me.)

I understood that mentality, somewhat, in the past, but what is preventing you from purchasing a plan under ACA?

That's what I did when I took a couple years off. If you think of health insurance as disaster coverage, the "cheap" ACA coverage has a better worse case than the premo platinum offerings.

Under https://www.coveredca.com/health/coverage-levels/bronze/hdhp... coverage for an individual 40 year old making $150K/year will cost you $6k/year with an out-of-pocket max of $7K/year. Not great on either end. But, not disaster either.

But, if your income is $30K/year, the cost drops to $0.0 to $1200 per year.

Move abroad and get an international health insurance plan. Price of 1 months premium covers the annual premium for an international gold plated plan.

If I didn't have a child in school I'd be on a plane to the Caribbean so fast.

Do they have good schools in the Caribbean?

I'm not OP but when I quit my job earlier this year I went with a plan from the healthcare marketplace. It's not cheap, but that's the reality of US health care.

COBRA is also an option for a limited amount of time after leaving.

Not on US, top top insurance here costs 100€ month

Where is that?

In my situation, I used COBRA.

Same here. Too bad it only lasts 6 months.

In my case, COBRA was available for 18 months after resignation. It is certainly expensive comparatively.

I'm looking into crowdhealth or a health share. I'm young(ish) and healthy; ymmv.

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