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Comment by imustbeevil | Hacker News Reader

Healthcare.gov. We've had that system for 12 years. I've never had employer healthcare, it was way more expensive than private insurance in Hawaii, which anyone can get and you auto-qualify for enrollment if you change jobs or move.

https://www.navapbc.com/insights/twelve-years-of-healthcare-...

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Are you saying you’ve declined your employer sponsored healthcare and just signed up at healthcare.gov and it ended up being cheaper?

Yes. The plan my employer had in Hawaii was $700/mo for pretty average coverage. On Healthcare.gov the best possible plan I could get, $0 deductible, full coverage, etc, was $510/mo.

I think the difficulty is that most people who have employer healthcare have never checked healthcare.gov because they didn't need to, but it's hard to keep seeing people perpetuate this idea that hasn't been true for over a decade.

Ah, you might not have kids? I just went through the sign up process. All the plans were about the same for me on Healthcare.gov: $1,400 a month with no coverage until after a $14k deductible. This is for a family of four in Georgia.

I suspect you're also putting in your current income, rather than something much lower that you'd be experiencing if you just lost your job.

I do this, because I need one of the higher-end plans with the low cap on out-of-pocket expenses. It'd be more expensive to take my work's; cheaper on monthly premium, but my family OOP max would be $14k instead of $4k.

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