cheap health insurance

[Runrooster]

In my current, Coast-FIRE job, with employer contributions I am paying $150/month for health insurance.
I just landed a new job, at a 33% raise, which has a 2 month wait for health insurance.
COBRA was going to cost me $640/month for those two months.
Due to something I read here, I think, I checked Obamacare.  Due to my low income, I am getting health insurance basically for free.  That's with a premium tax credit, and it's a high-deductible HSA plan at the bronze level, so it's not great insurance, but it's free and it means I don't have to have a gap in coverage and can continue getting tax benefits of an HSA.

On another note, I'm worried that my new employer is actually not providing affordable coverage.  It's a young company so they have chosen to get age-rated insurance, and I may be the poorest-paid of the older employees.  Especially given a full $3600 HSA deduction, I will be paying more than 9.83% of my W2 wages.  My new cost is $330/month.  I was debating telling my new company, both because they might be willing to cover a larger portion of my health insurance and because they will eventually figure it out when they do their ACA compliance testing.  But it's a new job and I don't want to make waves first thing.

[terran]

Have you looked at the safe harbors for plan affordability? For example, it looks like if you make at least $330/9.83%/130 hours = $25.82/hour that your employer would get to say they provide affordable insurance regardless of how many hours you actually work.

As far as whether you can get a subsidy for ACA insurance due to unaffordable workplace coverage, I think you'd need to keep total income (not just income from this job) under 12 x 330 / 9.83% = $40,285

[Runrooster]

Thanks, terran, I was hoping someone would know more about ACA compliance than I do.
I make $20/hr after my raise so they're not meeting the safe harbor.

I do have plenty of other income - a side hustle as a tax preparer plus dividends/capital gains - though I also have a tIRA deduction.  In any case, I think the ACA subsidy is about the same as the $350 that my employer is subsidizing, so it would be a wash.  I would be able to pick from a variety of plans, but I'm not overall dissatisfied with the plan my employer picked, long-term. I guess it would be better to get a silver plan with the CSR than the gold plan my employer, but, it's not worth ticking off my employer by reporting them for non-compliance.

I do qualify for 2 months of Obamacare since COBRA doesn't count as employer coverage.

[terran]

What I wrote is just based on a quick bit of research, so click my link and make sure you think I've interpreted it correctly for a more definitive answer, but yeah I think they'd need to either slightly raise your hourly rate and bring you up to full time or raise your rate almost $6/hour if they want to keep charging employees $330/month for insurance. I think at $20/hour they'd need to bring insurance down to about $256/month unless you work more than 130 hours per month.

Using the Kauffman Foundation calculator, if you keep your total income just under $40,285 such that $330/month is unaffordable then your ACA premiums for a silver plan would be $215/month after subsidy. This annual income would effectively become your subsidy cliff since anything more would mean $330/month is affordable workplace insurance. If you kept your income lower or went with a bronze plan then the cost could be less.

[Runrooster]

I'm full time, but the safe harbor rules seem to be based on a 32-hour week for some reason.
I did look at your link, and I think you've read it right. I was calculating a $298 premium based on $40,000 salary, $3600 HSA deduction, and 9.83%, but the safe harbor drops it even lower to $256. 

Again, I'm less interested in reporting them or losing my job over $.50/hour health insurance bump, than wondering if I should tell them or let them figure it out on their own.  I think their other employees are young, so they're paying a reasonable age-rated premium.

I looked at the KFF calculator and it gives a $415 subsidy.  My state insurance program lists only a subsidy of $290 at $40,000 salary, and I live in an expensive state so I don't understand the discrepancy.

ETA: If I read it right, and I may not, employer penalties only kick in if I decline employer coverage and take ACA coverage.  I am unlikely to do so at my subsidy level.  But, even if I did, the penalty for them is $338 per month, which is a lot MORE than paying the $80 difference to me, but it's a lot LESS than paying all of their employees another $80/month towards health insurance.  If even half of the 60 employees take employer coverage, it's cheaper to pay the penalty for one person going off-plan.