Paying too much
I met with a lady who was referred to me because her cobra coverage was ending. Whenever you leave a job, you have 18 months where you can keep that coverage, but you have to pay for it at the full price. When you get insurance through a job, your employers are often chipping in a percentage, at least 50% in most cases. And when you leave that company, you are allowed to keep that same policy, but you have to pay typically a hundred percent of the premium.
Saving money
This lady is paying about $1,600 a month for her entire family on Cobra. She started her own business and didn't call me until after January, so she has to wait until November. With that said, we've run the numbers. She knows which plan she wants and she’s basically going to be saving a little more than 50%. She's going to go from paying $1,600 a month to paying around $700 a month which will give her more expendable income to do with what she wants to do, for the same coverage. Just to be clear: we are talking about family coverage - two spouses with children. This is an example of someone who's starting their own business. Self-employed people often think, “How am I going to get health insurance?” In her case, she doesn't have any employees yet, so we can’t make a group. So we ran her through the exchange to see if we could save money that way.
How to save 800 dollars on health insurance.
People don’t always know these programs are available. You may qualify for a subsidy, where you can get the government to pay for a portion. It's only available to people who don't qualify for any other government assistance, for example, Medicare or Medicaid. You may qualify if:
You're not on Medicaid, or
You're not 65 plus on Medicare, or
You’re not disabled and on Medicare, or
You’re not offered insurance through a job, which you would have to take
This kind of narrows it down a bit. The most important thing to know is that you might be eligible for this program if: you freelance, own a business, or work for small companies who don't offer insurance. The savings can be life changing. Freeing up expendable income has enabled people to enhance their quality of life. I’ve seen my customers invest in vacation homes, boats, and even remodeling their home, all from changing their insurance plans to where they have more money to do the things they really want to do.