Earl E Retyre
Full time employment: Posting here.
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2010
- Messages
- 541
My COBRA eligibility ended in the middle of the year and so I switched to an ACA healthcare plan. I did a little bit of consulting this year for some blow your dough money. In doing my taxes, I now learned that if you are self-employed, you can deduct ACA health insurance premiums but you cannot deduct premiums you paid for COBRA health insurance. While they are both just medical premiums to me, I guess the rationale from the IRS is that COBRA is associated with my former employer's business and not mine. Maybe that is obvious to most, but I was unaware. So, I would have been better off if I had chosen an ACA all year and not been on COBRA at all.
The other lesson learned is that with the ACA subsidy, my monthly healthcare premiums would have been much lower when compared to my COBRA premiums. Since my COBRA plan was a PPO and ACA is an HMO, I assumed it was a much better plan and worth paying a bit more. But, now that I have been on an HMO, I do not really see much difference. We cannot self refer to see medical specialists but would likely ask our PCP for a referral regardless.
In hindsight, I would have saved several thousand if I had just chosen an ACA plan all year.
The other lesson learned is that with the ACA subsidy, my monthly healthcare premiums would have been much lower when compared to my COBRA premiums. Since my COBRA plan was a PPO and ACA is an HMO, I assumed it was a much better plan and worth paying a bit more. But, now that I have been on an HMO, I do not really see much difference. We cannot self refer to see medical specialists but would likely ask our PCP for a referral regardless.
In hindsight, I would have saved several thousand if I had just chosen an ACA plan all year.