does anyone have thier OWN health insurance?

[rainbowmoon]

like not through your/spouse's job?

My MIL seems to think since I live off of SSA death benefits I qualify for "free" insurance through medicaid. the only thing is I'm pretty sure it's deducted from my payments annually. which might work out in the end. though I'm not even sure I will qualify due to 1 asset (not much mind you- but I have some real estate I am really close to paying off).

for the time being I am covered through a corporation of DH and his family. but it could end at anytime. who knows. I may just get some profits, though I'm not holding my breathe.

I am allowed to make $12,000 a year before I get anything cut out of my SSA benefits. so I will be able to work at home a bit for extra $$$, which will help though not cover our current plan. I really don't want to get a job outside of the home just to pay for insurance : :

I am thinking about looking into a private health insurance plan. but not sure where to even begin. anyone have any ideas? (it would be for me a 2 kids) is it possible to get urgent care/emergency/hospital only insurance and pay the rest out of pocket? (years ago I had a plan like this on myself but not sure it still exists) we rarely go to the dr. btw so this seems like it might work for us.

our current plan would be over $400 a month

[Herausgeber]

I had to have insurance coverage just for myself when I was between jobs a few years back. It was $300 a month for very basic coverage (high deductible; no pre-existing conditions; wouldn't have covered a pregnancy, etc.). I've been lucky not to have to go that route since then, especially once I realized just how expensive insurance could get when you have to buy it on your own. I worked for a few weeks as a temp receptionist for an insurance company, and I routinely processed insurance payments for people who dropped by to pay them in person. It was not unusual for someone to make a payment of $1000-plus to cover a family of four for a month.

[dinade]

Hi April,
My coverage is like what your describing. For me alone with a 5000 deductible it's 94.00/mo. Now if once I reach 5000 then everything is covered 100%. So I thought about that and most plans are 80/20 and if you run up a huge bill then doing it this way is actually cheaper to self insure than to have the 80/20 and a copay. Now the downside is I've spent about 600.00 this year on my healthcare but hey that's still cheaper than 400.00/mo. I was paying over 600/mo for the family now it's 200.00 for the family and 94.00 for me. I was costing us 400.00 a month just because of possible maternity. ugh. WE are through having children I just adopted and if we want another child we willa dopt again for the fact that I have horrible pregnancies filled with surgeries before and during the pg. Anyway hope that helps some.

[4evermom]

Dh has a policy through work. I'm not sure the exact amount he pays for it out of his salary, a little over $100 maybe. Our income is low enough that we qualify for Blue Cross/Blue Shield's low income "Special Care" so I am on that for about $118. The cut off income for a family of 3 is $28,000 I think. Ds is on CHIP, a free Pennsylvania program for children in low income families. So we pay less than $250 for a family of 3. The low income coverage is pretty good, as long as I don't need more than 30 consecutive days of hospital care. It payed for a homebirth but I have a suspicion that there was fancy paperwork filing at the midwife's office because I wasn't expecting it. Everything is covered in CHIP, dental, vision, even a reimbursment for bike helmets.

[mosesface]

my dh and i have an individual plan through aetna. for both of us (WITH pre-existing conditions, which just means they increase our premium by %25) we pay $200/mo. it's pretty basic -- $5000 deductible, $40 copay to see the doctor, $100 for the emergency room (unless you're admitted) and 80/20 everything else.

pretty soon we're going to bump up to a lower deductible plan. you can google "individual health insurance" and there are a couple of really good sites that will help you find a good plan for yourself and your kiddos.

[EarthyMamaofDaisy]

I don't know what state you live in but when I first got on Medicaid I owned a condo and a car outright and that was no problem. I know where I live they only take money out for Medicare, not Medicaid.