When I retire in a couple of months at age 63 1/2, I am looking into all options for health insurance.
Will stop receiving health insurance from my employer. The company only has 7 employees so do not qualify for COBRA.
Option 1 - Healthcare sharing ministries, does anybody have any good or bad experiences, recomendations.
Option 2 - Pay the very high premiums.
Option 3 - Hold down my income below $51,040 to get tax credit on an ACA plan. I can afford to do that, could use savings if I need to.
What do you all recommend?
Man, this conversation went off the rails in a hurry. Appears to be allot of health share haters out there.
OP, since you asked for opinions, here's mine based on experience. I have been self-employed for over 32 years so shopping HI has been an annual function of mine. Over the years I have had company HI through "associations", private insurance, high deductible catastrophe insurance, ACA, and now have been on a health share plan for the last 3 years. I look at insurance (including HI) like any other business decision and size up the risks/rewards, do my homework, and then make a decision. For me, what finally did it, was my ACA plan year after year got worse in coverage, dropped all of our regular docs, added more hoops to jump thru to see certain docs, and the cost was getting ridiculous. I did my research, looked at our current health/pre-existing conditions, etc. and pulled the trigger and chose a health share plan. Like you and many of us, I have to solve my HI issue until I hit 65 (currently 56) and will continue to evaluate the options year by year. So far, my 3 year experience has been great. We have had procedures/medical expenses from $1000 - $10,000 and so far everything has been covered as expected. Based on the quoted ACA premiums 3 years ago, I was saving $18K/year in premiums alone. I also have evaluated the worse case scenario should the 25 year old health share company not come thru on a catastrophe (I have assets to self-insure and can jump back on ACA again at some point if need be). You could also look at it as I have banked $18K/year in savings for the last 3 years which goes in my emergency fund. The trade off to me is I am in control of my health care and choose the docs and facilities I want to go to... that is valuable to me. Do these plans require some faith... you bet. But guess what, we all put our faith in something.
Is a health share plan right for you? Consider the following...
- Are you comfortable being part of a Christian plan and it's by laws... they do have some?
- Are you and those covered in decent health with minimal pre-existing conditions? These plans work best for the more healthy.
- Do you have the ability to cover some out of pocket costs for a few months until you are reimbursed?
- Are you comfortable dealing directly with doc offices about procedure costs, asking for 'Cash pay" discounts?
- Do you like saving $10K - $18K/year in premiums/costs?
- Are you comfortable taking some risk since it is not insurance?
Good luck on finding a solution!