Like many here my wife and I have been following the ongoing saga of the Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare with much interest. Reading these forums I feel like we're part of a small minority not only in not having group health insurance from a megacorp but also in living on considerably less than many seem to spend on health insurance premiums alone.
We've been very fortunate in having no major medical stuff so far and have gotten by with ultra high-deductible (10K per person) plans costing us ~$220-300 total per month (I'm 55, DW is 49). Since we live off of assets only and are frugal our taxable income each year is way below federal poverty guidelines, making us elibigible for Medicaid coverage in 2014 according to ACA.
So as things stand now (realizing the upcoming elections could change everything) this is the way I read things: we pay the premiums for our current bare bones/catastrohpic coverage through 2013, are then able to use Medicaid as our catastrophic coverarage starting in 2014, but once we hit age 65 we need to budget for Medicare and Medigap premiums as "normal" Medicaid has means/asset tests which we'd clearly fail. This all sounds too crazy and complicated to be true, but based on a careful reading of the info put out by Kaiser Foundation and others this is what I'm thinking is the case. Comments?
We've been very fortunate in having no major medical stuff so far and have gotten by with ultra high-deductible (10K per person) plans costing us ~$220-300 total per month (I'm 55, DW is 49). Since we live off of assets only and are frugal our taxable income each year is way below federal poverty guidelines, making us elibigible for Medicaid coverage in 2014 according to ACA.
So as things stand now (realizing the upcoming elections could change everything) this is the way I read things: we pay the premiums for our current bare bones/catastrohpic coverage through 2013, are then able to use Medicaid as our catastrophic coverarage starting in 2014, but once we hit age 65 we need to budget for Medicare and Medigap premiums as "normal" Medicaid has means/asset tests which we'd clearly fail. This all sounds too crazy and complicated to be true, but based on a careful reading of the info put out by Kaiser Foundation and others this is what I'm thinking is the case. Comments?