Recommended reading to understand ACA costs?

[Brian_W]

I retired due to layoff in March, but I've got 11 years until Medicare eligibility. I'm currently on COBRA paid for by my former employer for another 9 months.

I'm looking to learn as much as I can on ACA so I can actually make it affordable for my family. I played with the household income number on the ACA website and I can see that income makes a huge difference in the cost. I've seen posts that refer to income as a percentage of federal poverty level, etc. but want to understand it better. My wife and I will have pretty good control over our annual income starting next year. Other than the number of people in the household, I'm not really sure what else affects the cost.

I'm looking for some recommendations on articles, books, videos, posts, whatever, that I can read to understand it better so I can avoid making a costly mistake next year.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[SecondCor521]

The Kaiser Family Foundation seems to have some good materials.

You could try taking a look at IRS Form 8962 if your brain works well with tax forms.

Your subsidy depends on:

ACA modified AGI, which is your AGI plus some things get added back in.
FPL for your family size and location (CONUS or Alaska or Hawaii).

You can apply the subsidy to any plan in your area. Whatever is left over after the subsidy is your subsidized premium.

The cost of the plan will depend on how many in your family get coverage, whether they use tobacco, their age, and then of course the particulars of the plan.

You can also get CSRs, or Cost Sharing Reductions. These are on Silver plans only, and usually look like regular plans which have noticeably lower deductibles and OOP maximums.

You can enroll in ACA plans every year in the fall (Nov/Dec). If your COBRA coverage ends at a different time of year, then the loss of COBRA coverage would make you eligible for a special enrollment period where you could sign up for ACA in, say, April.

 

[Surewhitey]

I bookmarked this & recall it having good info...

https://www.gocurrycracker.com/aca-...lHRyF6TcvLuo4XGdB3H16-8rc_VJA-BXB9J3wEb9C3Ixg

 

[qwerty3656]

I bookmarked this & recall it having good info...

https://www.gocurrycracker.com/aca-...lHRyF6TcvLuo4XGdB3H16-8rc_VJA-BXB9J3wEb9C3Ixg

Thanks - Just book marked it

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

MAGI Summary

https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2021-03-MAGI-Summary.pdf

FPL chart for Premium Tax Subsidy and Silver Plans

https://www.coveredca.com/pdfs/FPL-chart.pdf

 

[Brian_W]

Thanks for the suggestions. They were helpful as I started digging into the process. I found a few more incase anyone finds this post in the near future

https://communications.fidelity.com/tem/WI/webcast/hub/#medicarebridge

https://finder.healthcare.gov/ (non-ACA plans)
https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p502.pdf
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p969.pdf