Hi Terrence,

I’m happy to hear you found the article informative. When picking a plan for a single person there are a number of factors you should take into account. First and foremost in my opinion is the cost factor. How much can you budget for health insurance each month? One of the very helpful aspects of the ACA are the subsides for buying health insurance. These can save you a substantial amount of money if you qualify.

I’d recommend using the Kaiser Family Foundation calculator I linked to in the article. It’s not 100 percent accurate, but it’s good for a ballpark planning number. For the exact subsidy number you’ll have to go through the exchange, either your state’s exchange or the now dreaded HealthCare.gov.

Aside from price, you should also honestly assess your need for health care. For example if you are only going to the doctor once or twice a year, it doesn’t make sense to buy an expensive platinum plan, when a cheaper bronze plan would serve you just as well. I could continue to drone on and on about picking a plan, but I’ll try to restrain myself =). I would suggest though talking with a local or online health insurance broker to get some specific health insurance recommendations.

One thing that a lot of news stories don’t mention is that the exchange navigators are there to help you sign up for a plan, and figure out the exchange, but they are legally barred from making recommending specific health insurance plans.

Whereas with a broker you can sit down and discuss your health and financial situation, and specific things like how different insurers’ networks compare with one another. Then at the end the broker can suggest plans that fit your needs.

I hope that was helpful!

Thanks for reading Lori and I’m glad you enjoyed the article. What specific areas are you having difficulty with. Maybe I can help?

Hi Cathy,

I’m glad you enjoyed the article, and that’s some great information about supplemental health insurance for freelancers on your blog. It’s always important to keep in mind that plans on the exchanges are not the be all, end all for health insurance next year. There will still be plenty of options for people to shop off of the exchanges for health insurance.

What many will find when they can actually get on the Healthcare.gov site are a lot of high deductible plans. Generally, the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. But, that can leave a lot of out-of-pocket expenses.

Over at my health care blog, I posted some info. on supplemental health insurance that freelancers may want to consider in their overall strategy to fill the gaps.

You are right about the tax subsidies – huge savings on premium costs – if you qualify. Estimates are that’s $45,960 (or less) for individual coverage and $$94,200 (or less) for a family of four.

Thanks for sharing info. that is so important for hard-working freelancers.