Health insurance question?!?

Question

I am this close to accepting a job with a with the marketing arm of a foreign manufacturer. In fact, there are so few people, the company does not offer health insurance. While I can keep my insurance through COBRA I would like to find a good health insurance through another company? What are some good websites I can investigate to find a suitable replacement?

Answer 1

If you are young and in relatively good health, my suggestion is to get a major medical plan via Blue Sheild. This will not cover any doctor visits or prescriptions, but God forbid you need surgery, that will be covered with a deductible of usually about $2000. The cost for a policy will vary based on your age, but I got one recently in between jobs for like $36/month at the age of 38. COBRA will run you about $400+/month probably, so it is worth rolling the dice if you are relatively healthy. If you have health issues, I would get the COBRA and find a new job FAST that will provide coverage for you. GOOD LUCK.

Answer 2

Well unless you are going to stay in a group policy, you are going to find that the prices in the individual market are really, really expensive.
Normally employers pay anywhere from 50 or 60 percent of the premium on the low end to 100 percent on the high end. Which means employees who are used to only having to pay 10 percent or so of their monthly premium get a very rude awakening at the true cost of health insurance.
In the individual market, a typical family plan with spouse and kids and a reasonable deductible and co-pays is well over $1000 per month, sometimes closer to $1500 per month and that's only if everybody's healthy with no pre-existing conditions.
Any kind of previous health problem knocks into high risk areas where either you get outright refused or get into super high premiums like $5000 per month or more.

So if you shop for individual plans, be prepared for sticker shock.

It is almost always better to get into some sort of group policy if you can.

COBRA is nice in that you get to stay in a group plan, but you have to pay the full premium, not just the percent that your employer didn't pay. And it is limited to just 18 months time.

If you are healthy, a better option may be to try a Health Savings Account. There are great tax advantages and the premiums on the insurance part of the account are much lower because there is a high deductible meaning you pay out of the cash portion of the account until you hit the deductible and then the policy pays.

But if you are indeed healthy, you won't spending much of the cash and it not only accumulates tax free, it can rollover from employer to employer and at age 65 when you retire, you can convert it to a regular retirement account (since Medicare is going to be picking up your health care costs) and at that point, you are only taxed at your post retirement tax rate, which hopefully will be lower because of your reduced income.

If you are looking for a good company in the individual market, you may want to try Assurant. They have some very novel products including a fairly low cost "short term" individual health care plans. The rates are really low because the policy is only for a very short, limited time frame like 6 months or so.

Answer 3

Try insure.com