Author Topic: Health Insurance Dilemma  (Read 1673 times)

positivepanda

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Health Insurance Dilemma
« on: October 31, 2017, 10:58:13 PM »
I work full-time at my local church and am uninterested in changing that.

My pay is small enough that my family qualifies for AHCCCS (essentially Medicaid here in Arizona), but high enough that we are *right* at the income limits for it. I'd be happy to go out and get a second job, but then we'd get kicked off of AHCCCS and be required to buy private health insurance.

Ideally, I'd like to start my own small carpentry business, but I can't figure out how to go from making $0 to keep the AHCCCS to making enough money to afford private health insurance right away.

I just went to healthcare.gov and looked up the 2018 plans available in our area. Apparently, since we'd qualify for AHCCCS/Medicaid, we would have to pay full price for a private plan. The five available plans: (prices are estimates, of course, and I'm sorry I don't know how to use the table function on here)


Catastrophic - 615 Premium - 14.7K Deductible - 14.7K Out Of Pocket Max
Bronze       - 855         - 13.3K            - 13.3K
Bronze       - 1000        - 13K              - 14.7K
Silver       - 1210        - 8K               - 13.3K
Gold         - 1500        - 3K               - 11K


Some basic facts about us:
- Early 20s
- 1 Kid (but no Birth Control use so more may come at any time)
- Healthy

Any advice?

Lake161

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Re: Health Insurance Dilemma
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2017, 04:06:26 PM »
Did you run the numbers on the health insurance site for your current pay plus what you hope to make at the second job? You should qualify for a significant premium subsidy and cost sharing. If you list the higher expected income level, they won’t force you onto the Medicaid plan.