Individual and Family Health Insurance Plans

If you do not have access to insurance through an employer (or are self employed) you can look at individual or family insurance plans. Most often these are known as Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans, or sometimes even referred to as Obamacare plans (though this isn’t as common now.

Regardless of the name, these are plans you would more than likely be looking at. Now there are a few other terms you just need to be aware of. First there are On Exchange Plans. These are the plans in which you are applying to see if you qualify for a subsidy. In simple terms. If your income are at certain levels you may be able to qualify to have your premium reduced. There are some things you need to be aware of that we will need to discuss (tax filing etc), but these are simply referred to as On Exchange Plans.

Second term is Off-Exchange Plans. These are plans that are offered in which you are not attempting to get subsidies to reduce the price. You may look at these plans if you are above the income threshold level which qualifies you to receive them OR you just don’t to bother with the tax filing processes that are required (its important that you are clear and understand this……lets discuss if you are unsure as this will be help give you a piece of mind).

If you are looking at other plans other than the On/Off Exchange Plans – just know that options can be limited. Short Term Medical plans could be an option (we can discuss). Additionally, you may opt to look at a cost sharing group, sometimes these could be an option. Not all options are right for everyone and there are pros and cons to everything.

Bare in mind too that you can help build out a help plan using supplemental plans that are available. Basically these can help pay for a number of costs that insurance may not pay for. So you can have an employer plan with high deductibles, individual plans with high deductibles or even a cost share membership – whatever the case you will most likely have some initial costs you will be responsible for. These supplemental plans can help cover some of those initial expenses and many are quite affordable and not complex.

Overall, there are some options here – however I cannot stress how important it is to just fully understand it and have a strategy session to talk them through. This will help you determine what is best for you. Better yet you have a dedicate partner (me) to help guide you along the way.

Got questions? Let’s Talk!