Medical Insurance

[rv rdm]

I am currently covered by my companies medical insurance, and am only 60, so not eligible for Medicare for 5 years. I am seriously considering leaving my job ( and will then lose the medical insurance) and workamping, where medical insurance will not be available. How do people who currently RV/workamp, who are under Medicare age, get "affordable" health insurance that can be used throughout the US? I will also be covering one 20 year old.

[Zulu]

When I was 65 (on Medicare) and my wife was 63 (on the ACA), we work camped in CA. My wife's AZ ACA Gold plan just covered her and cost about $1,000/month.

Though our AZ ACA health plan was a PPO, it was an in-state PPO and didn't have a national network.

If we had known about and used the ACA's SEP (Special Enrollment Period), we could have switched to a CA ACA plan while work camping in CA. As it was, we had to travel back and forth between AZ and CA for my wife's medical procedures.

Anyway, I think the only way that an ACA plan is affordable is if you qualify for a subsidy.

[Kirk W]

Do you plan to keep your domicile in VA, or move it to a different state? If you plan to change states, FL is probably going to be your best choice. As far as "affordable" health insurance,  that is pretty subjective as what number that is depends on the income of the person shopping. Since most work-camping jobs are not very high pay, I'd expect that number to be difficult to find, even in FL where there are more insurance companies that sell policies there than is the case in most other good choices of domicile for an RVer. Affordable health care is probably the most difficult problem to overcome for most people going fulltime who are not eligible for Medicare. 

[D&J]

Pre Obama Care I could have given some advice but after that was forced on us that were supplying our own insurance that went out the window. The only advice I can give you now is apply for Obama Car and see what happens but be sitting down when you get the price. 

Denny 

[Poohbear]

Get some info on a group called " Medishare " . I really don't know much about it but it's some kind of Faith based cost sharing insurance plan. 

Is " COBRA " still part of Fed employment rules ?  It lets you retain your former employers plan for 1 year IF you want to pay the premium. With the so called ACA,, affordable health insurance for those that do not qualify for the subsidies is a thing of the past. My widowed Daughter raising 3 kids had insurance for about $400 monthly, ACA rose her premium to over $1000 plus &10K deductible. 

[GlennWest]

We had Medishare for years. I never used it all that time. Very healthy. Good gens. I am blessed. Companies I work for now carry very afforable insurance so I use them. My wife went to a doctor for one of her problems. They turned Medishare down flatly. Would not even take her for self pay as Medishare would have reinversed us. Well she is older than me and Medicare became available and she has that. Now this is not normal but some are out there that has had a bad exsperience with such and refuse to deal with them.They pay more than medicare but still refuses. I totaly believe medishare is a great sevice but there can be issuses.

[filthy-beast]

Yes cobra is an option for up to 18 months. For me it's a better deal than going onto the exchange. However, if you are 65 or older you have to go medicare.

[whj469]

I have never found what you are looking for, low cost medical insurance, for under 65. Therefore I had to wait until I received Medicare at 65. I find Medicare to be the very best Medical Insurance that I have ever had, by far! Before I retired in September 2016 I was the CEO for a company with more then 500 employees and we were paying more then $900 per month per employee thru United Healthcare. I had wanted to retire when I got Medicare but I stayed on for two more years to get rid of United Healthcare and implement a self funded plan which saved a little more then $250 per month per employee or a total of $950,000 during those two years. The self funded plan is better then what United Healthcare offered and they, the self funded plan, decide what is covered and what is not covered. When we had United Healthcare they decided one day that they will not cover weight reduction surgery. We had no input regarding that and I very much resented that. Good luck, you will need it.

[richfaa]

On ‎2‎/‎26‎/‎2020 at 10:03 PM, D&J said:

Pre Obama Care I could have given some advice but after that was forced on us that were supplying our own insurance that went out the window. The only advice I can give you now is apply for Obama Car and see what happens but be sitting down when you get the price. 

Denny 

Remember ACA stands for AFFORDABLE care act. It was(allegedly) designed for low income folks  who could not afford health care  and received subsidies' based on their  income to make it affordable(allegedly) If your income was high you did not qualify for subsidies  and the health care was unaffordable. We had our own employer provided health insurance and the ACA was  not forced upon us. I helped some low income folks with the ACA applications and with the subsidy it was affordable.  I ran my income and was not eligible for any subsidy and it was not affordable. You can do the homework on the ACA and check for any subsidy but I would doubt it.

[Barbaraok]

On 2/27/2020 at 1:40 PM, whj469 said:

I have never found what you are looking for, low cost medical insurance, for under 65. Therefore I had to wait until I received Medicare at 65. I find Medicare to be the very best Medical Insurance that I have ever had, by far! Before I retired in September 2016 I was the CEO for a company with more then 500 employees and we were paying more then $900 per month per employee thru United Healthcare. I had wanted to retire when I got Medicare but I stayed on for two more years to get rid of United Healthcare and implement a self funded plan which saved a little more then $250 per month per employee or a total of $950,000 during those two years. The self funded plan is better then what United Healthcare offered and they, the self funded plan, decide what is covered and what is not covered. When we had United Healthcare they decided one day that they will not cover weight reduction surgery. We had no input regarding that and I very much resented that. Good luck, you will need it.

500 employees for a self-funded plan probably isn't enough depending upon the age of the employees.  I hope there is some way they are setting aside a rainy day fund, because a couple of bypass surgeries and cancer diagnosis, or one premie, and the self-funding maybe out of money.

[whj469]

We buy re-insurance that covers large claims and caps our liability at 125% of our premiums. When I setup the self-funding, I was told that 200 employees were enough if you got the re-insurance. I don't think that it should be done without the re-insurance? We had been expending about 60% of premiums on claims and United Health Care got 40%. That is where the savings come from. Ninety seven percent of employees are female and most young, child bearing age.