Does anyone understand Obamacare?

[mountainsoft]

Yes but don't underestimate the flexibility of the HSA on staying under the cliff, if you have ANY chance of going over that cliff HSA funding could be worth it's weight in gold.

Not a concern. My wife and I won't be anywhere near the $65,840 cutoff for a married couple. We're planning on $40K income per year.

 

[sengsational]

Sorry if this was already covered, but do you have traditional IRA's or traditional 401k's? Monies held there probably should be converted to Roth annually to fill-up low tax brackets.

 

[pb4uski]

.... Based on the numbers I've run, I think the Bronze plan should work well for us, and the $8000/yr I'm budgeting for healthcare in retirement should be fairly safe. Now I just have to wait and see what happens with healthcare in the next four years before we retire.

That is the way that it works out for us. We're both pretty healthy and no prescription meds.... claims of perhaps $1k a year, so bronze is most affordable for us. $8k for premiums and deductibles would be a normal year for us... my former employer COBRA was $11k a year 7 years ago when I retired so I'm pretty happy.

We have some retired friends who are healthy and are proud as punch that they have a platinum plan and negligible deductibles. One-time I said something along the lines of comparing the annual cost of a various level plans based on premiums and deductibles based in your typical use of health care services... and that I concluded that the bronze plan was the lowest cost for us because we had negligible claims and the premiums were lowest. The husband got it but the wife seemed to want the "best" plan no matter what the premiums were. Whatever... not my monkey... I tried.

 

[gauss]

A couple of thoughts and an ACA question. I too, find the ACA (and healthcare coverage costs in general) require a great deal of research and wisdom-seeking from those who have a better understanding than myself. Healthcare coverage reminds me a lot of income taxes in that regard - if you really want to navigate either in an optimal way for your own circumstances, it takes a helpful tribe. I made serious use of the spreadsheet offered earlier in this thread and am grateful to the developer (may your generosity return to you many times over).

While it took a fair amount of effort to sort out the best path for us, we were grateful for the option and could not have ERd without it and the subsidy. And, like some others noted here, will breath a little easier when we make it to Medicare next year.

And now my question (I’ve searched for this but not found anything so apologies in advance if it’s repetitive): DH and I will turn 65 in the same year, 2020; me in April and DH in Nov. Will the income limit applied in 2020 be for a two person household even if both people are not on the ACA for the entire year?

Also, I started wondering - what happens if one of the household dies? How does the subsidy get calculated then? Is the surviving spouse income now limited to the single person household income limit?

That would really suck I think and is why we keep a stash of Roth funds available. It’s a little weird when I look back on all the work DH and I have done to manage ER - healthcare costs and the planning to manage them have taken up most of the oxygen in the room.

It sounds like you are asking about ACA subsidies (aka Premium Tax Credits).

To answer your questions, take a look at IRS from 8962. Premium Tax Credits.

I believe that if you can go through the form and calculate your subsidy by hand, then you should be able to answer all of your questions.

--
That being said, if memory serves (I don't have 8962 in front of me currently), the way that it works is as follows

1) If you are filing as single instead of MFJ, then there are different figures for Federal Poverty Level (FPL). The 400% of FPL number for a single person would be lower than for that of a married couple.

2) Your subsidy would be scaled based upon the number of months that you have an ACA policy.

-gauss

 

[Rick0]

For this year I have 4 people on the plan... and the difference between a bronze and a cost sharing silver is HUGE... it was not even a consideration as the max OOP for the family was like $22K vs $3K or $5K, not sure... the deductible is $7000 vs $1500...

One of the ACA/Obamacare distortions making the silver plans more costly in the last couple years is due to WA state implementing "Silver Loading".
See https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/cost-sharing-reduction-weeds-silver-loading-and-the-silver-switcheroo-explained/ for the details.

I've been using the WA state ACA Bronze/HSA plans for a few years now..

 

[triangle]

My understanding is that the ACA took an expensive product and made it more unaffordable (additional mandates) for the middle class in effort to make it cheap(er) for the poor. Most of my retirement savings are outside tax advantaged accounts so portfolio rebalancing takes away potential insurance payment subsidies. Since I often travel outside my coverage area and sometimes out of the country the cost/value ratio was not good for receiving limited benefits. But I have learned to like it, in that if I do suffer from a chronic condition that doesn't kill me I can then sign up.

I could not quite dissect the logic behind the pricing of the various gold, silver, and bronze plans. Except maybe that a gold plan was good for those with a chronic condition and very low income. While most everyone else would choose the cheapest premium plan that included their desired doctor.