- December 9th, 2016, 6:08 pm
#524274
Follow-up to my post from a couple of months ago...
And to summarize my situation, I'm semi-retired/self employed, and a few years away from official retirement age so I'm blessed to be able to even do this. My wife still works (her choice) and has her own healthcare. Our income doesn't allow for any subsidy so I have to pay full cost. In NC, only one choice now - Blue Cross. That premium was so high, it wasn't a viable option. Me going on my wife's plan and paying full price was about the same cost so that wasn't a good option.
What I did do was take a "short-term" policy offered by a major insurance carrier. It will cover me, for what it's worth, for nearly a full year. By then, hopefully, I might have some better and more affordable options. Anyhow, my premium is much lower with the short-term policy. I will have to pay everything out of pocket until I meet the deductible and co-insurance thresholds, so hopefully I'll have a healthy year. That's what I'm banking on. But in the event of something serious, I will be covered and won't get wiped out. It's kind of like catastrophe coverage. And, to tell you the truth, it's not much worse coverage than a conventional policy with deductibles what they are today.
I will have to pay the tax penalty, but even with that and paying most costs out of pocket, I will come out much better cost-wise than paying the high monthly premiums of regular coverage. I'm holding out some hope that once Obamacare is repealed or seriously altered, the tax penalty will be lifted and I'll come out even better. And, again, by 2018 hopefully we'll all have some options.
Hope this might help, in case some of you are in similar situations and having to fund their own coverage.
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