Your income might be a factor. If you are low enough income to take Medicaid, you might want to select a state that does not practice zealous Medicaid Estate recovery. Some states recover Medicaid costs for long therm nursing home care only. Others seek reimbursement for all expenses. It might be a factor to you if you wish to leave money to charity or individuals. Also, how are you defining “residence”? You may run into trouble if you try using a post office box as a “residence”.
Has anyone seen a good (current) comparison of ACA costs by state?
In SD for example you can declare yourself a permanent traveler and be a legal resident. How health insurance companies will feel about this is another question.
By design, the ACA subsidization scheme smooths out the variability in health insurance costs across the country.
Are you just going to travel around the US? Or around the world? Because if you're in the US for less than 35 days in a 12 month period, you're exempt from purchasing ACA compliant insurance.
I will likely not receive subsidies (certainly not in 2016, and moving forward will likely still have enough consulting income to be above the threshold)
The penalty is small enough that it's a non-factor compared to needing to have some sort of insurance to protect myself from worst-case scenarios.
Quote from: Eric on January 21, 2016, 01:18:16 PMAre you just going to travel around the US? Or around the world? Because if you're in the US for less than 35 days in a 12 month period, you're exempt from purchasing ACA compliant insurance.Does this mean that there is non-ACA compliant insurance that I could buy, or just that I wouldn't have to pay the penalty for not having it? The penalty is small enough that it's a non-factor compared to needing to have some sort of insurance to protect myself from worst-case scenarios. I'd love to be able to buy an old-school 15k deductible plan.
Quote from: StetsTerhune on January 21, 2016, 08:22:00 AMHas anyone seen a good (current) comparison of ACA costs by state?By design, the ACA subsidization scheme smooths out the variability in health insurance costs across the country. The size of the premium tax credits you will receive is a function of the cost of the second-cheapest "silver plan" in your area, such that your out-of-pocket premium cost (that is, net of the tax credit) will be equal to a fixed percentage of your income. So if coverage is more expensive in your area, you will get a bigger premium tax credit, and pay the same net amount as someone in a cheaper area. You don't have to purchase the second-cheapest silver plan, though, so, depending on the variability in the pricing of the other available plans, your out-of-pocket costs could vary based on where you reside if you select a different plan, but otherwise your out-of-pocket costs should be roughly the same no matter where you reside.
But if you don't get tax credits/subsidies, then it makes a BIG difference. Nevada, for example, sucks. :P
Both. You would be exempt from the penalty. Then assuming you'd still want some kind of health insurance coverage, you could tailor that to your specific situation. If you were going to take up residency in another country, you could buy a policy from that country specifically. If you were going to perpetually travel, you could buy a travel policy. I can't remember where, but I wrote it down after I read it on some travel blog (although haven't gotten around to researching for myself, so caveat emptor) that World Nomads is a good travel option. Or there's Bupa and a few other companies that offer short term country specific policies. If you google International Health Insurance, there are a lot of hits for both regular and travel insurance. A lot of what you'd want depends on your plan.
This might be useful. It turn out that rates vary city by city, as well as State to State.[snip]
Quote from: FIRE me on January 21, 2016, 10:14:29 AMThis might be useful. It turn out that rates vary city by city, as well as State to State.[snip]Just as a warning, there is a rather steep increase in premiums based on age, the cheapest Bronze plan I found in NJ was barely under $1000/month for myself (54) and a spouse. If I put in an age of 40, like the chart you linked, it is only $578/month for two of us. At 65 it is close to $1500/month. One thing keeping us on the fence about FIREing is health care costs, with a Silver plan, which is substantially inferior to what I have now at work, I would expect our premiums + health care costs to be running around $20k/year, based on our last few years experience with health care needs. Out of network coverage just isn't very good with the Exchange plans, from what we have seen.