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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

These days you go to your state exchange (for the putative ex-MS person, that's likely to be https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/), search for a plan, click on it and sign up.

It used to be worse, of course. But even then it wasn't a disaster for the case at hand: the COBRA act allowed you to continue to buy your existing plan at the same premiums for a year and a half until you found a new job.

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COBRA is impossibly expensive for many people. When you simultaneously have your salary drop to $0 and your portions of your insurance premiums triple (say, if you have a spouse and kids covered by the plan), that's a rough situation to be in.

About the only good thing about COBRA is that it covers preexisting conditions.

I can cosign this. Cobra for my wife and I was ~$1000/month.

Not to contribute to the ACA vs. non-ACA arguments further, but ACA plans for my wife, daughter and myself are more than double that in Maryland.

I don't know what the differences would be if I were earning $0 per year, especially as the relevant question (on the form I filled out) was something like "How much do you anticipate earning this year?" which is a question I have no idea how I would answer if I were currently unemployed.

Then that sounds about on par, because a family plan is usually 2x the cost of a couple's plan.

> I don't know what the differences would be if I were earning $0 per year

Your premiums would be $0. You would be immediately enrolled in medicaid.

That is the correct answer. Danke.

I'd answer that with "0", and send them an updated form as soon as things change. Filling out that form is not the time for heroism.

It's impossibly expensive because US health insurance is impossibly expensive. It's not like there's a significant extra cost associated with going with COBRA versus an equivalent individual policy. And prior to the start of this year, you might not be able to get an equivalent individual policy at any price. If you had any pre-existing conditions at all, then you definitely would not be able to get equivalent coverage.

> It's impossibly expensive because US health insurance is impossibly expensive.

And US health insurance is impossibly expensive because US health delivery is impossibly expensive. I believe 75% of the real US problem is not insurance, it is the cost of delivery.

The other problem with COBRA is that the insurance company has zero interest in customer service. Insurance companies are famously horrible to deal with, but if your employer's plan gives you trouble you'll probably complain to HR. If they get enough complaints, they could lose the contract next time around. They have at least some incentive to keep you happy (or at least non-furious)

When you're a COBRA customer you're basically on your own. Good luck getting them to pay up on anything.

Can we have a single-payer system now? Please?

And that within 60 days, you only pay the premium if you use it, because that's how long they give you to enroll in it. So if you get sick/injured within 60 days after being laid off, you can apply for COBRA, pay the premium, and you will be covered retroactively.

Should be noted that in most cases your employer would cover most of that premium. My insurance went from $10/month (with my employer covering $580) to $590/month on COBRA when I was laid off.

As a mid 20's single male, I had the same experience. My premiums were fully paid by my employer, so it was quite a shock when the COBRA paperwork came stating the monthly cost would be almost $600/month.

As a mid-45 male with a wife and kid, my cobra 5 years ago was $1200/month, and I was glad to pay it. 14,000 a year is nothing compared to one major incident involving a hospital.

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