Self employed health insurance question - is this even feasible w/ pre-existing conditions?

[Ns1]

Backstory: my wife runs a non profit organization - I've been fully supporting her and engrossing myself in this life, but to get to where the organization needs to go and can go, I need to quit my 9-5 to make it happen.

I have decent employment prospects on a part time or consulting basis and I'm great at hustling so I don't really have any concerns about making up the money. Where I DO have concern is with health insurance.

My current employer has decent/not great insurance - meaning 20% copays, but my monthly rates aren't too bad. The kicker here is my wife has a pre-existing condition. I know nothing about self employed health insurance + preexisting conditions beyond what is heard in the news.

Does anyone have any experience in this area? Should I just give up my dreams now? Is it only possible if I can make $$$$$$ self-employed?

 

[DietDrThunder]

All I can say is don't quit your day job.

 

[Ken g6]

I'm pretty sure she can get insurance because Obamacare is not dead. Yet. I don't know what might happen in a year or two.

 

[MrSquished]

The republicans will get rid of the pre-existing conditions rule as they are dismantling obamacare, but until they truly make America great again by fucking over ill Americans you should be able to get a plan on the marketplace

 

[Greenman]

Pre-existing conditions don't matter right now, I had no trouble finding insurance even after having malignant melanoma. But you will pay through the nose if you're older. Insurance for my wife and I is just a bit more than my mortgage, with a $6k deductible for each of us.

 

[GeekDrew]

As the others have said, it's definitely possible right now. I wouldn't bet on it remaining possible long-term, because conservative politics.

 

[Ns1]

Yeah I mean I kind of need a long term solution....

 

[GeekDrew]

Yeah I mean I kind of need a long term solution....

You might misunderstand "pre-existing condition". Once you have a plan, it's a condition, not pre-existing. Pre-existing conditions used to be important when there was a lapse in insurance; at the moment they aren't important (for health insurance). There's no way to guess what fresh ways our conservative government will find to screw us over, but that's just as likely to happen with plan A as B, so long as they're both in the USA.

 

[Ns1]

You might misunderstand "pre-existing condition". Once you have a plan, it's a condition, not pre-existing. Pre-existing conditions used to be important when there was a lapse in insurance; at the moment they aren't important (for health insurance). There's no way to guess what fresh ways our conservative government will find to screw us over, but that's just as likely to happen with plan A as B, so long as they're both in the USA.

So are you saying that if I leave my current company, AS LONG AS I GET INSURANCE AGAIN RIGHT AWAY, I'll be good? And to just keep ensuring that I'm always under some form of insurance?

 

[Slew Foot]

For now, pre-exisiting conditions do not matter. No one knows what will happen in the future.

 

[Greenman]

So are you saying that if I leave my current company, AS LONG AS I GET INSURANCE AGAIN RIGHT AWAY, I'll be good? And to just keep ensuring that I'm always under some form of insurance?

Yes.

 

[GeekDrew]

So are you saying that if I leave my current company, AS LONG AS I GET INSURANCE AGAIN RIGHT AWAY, I'll be good? And to just keep ensuring that I'm always under some form of insurance?

I am not a lawyer, and you need to carefully review the terms of whatever insurance you'd be getting.

But as of right now, generally speaking, pre-existing conditions are irrelevant for health insurance purposes in the USA. So yes.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Would it be possible to setup insurance through the organization? I've seen people discuss creating shell companies and other things (meaning they wouldn't actually do anything, it is all about just setting up an organization to enable more health insurance options) as a group to think about doing that. Which I think that has potential other problems (might be outright fraud of some kind), but since you'd have a legit organization you wouldn't need to worry about it. It would probably require hiring people on though, but a possible avenue maybe? You might even find people that would be ok with very little salary in exchange for solid health insurance coverage.

Oh, and I'm not a lawyer or remotely close to an expert on any aspect of that, just something I've seen people discuss, so figure it might be something worth looking into.

Oh, oh, and kudos on things going well. Hope you can figure something out!

 

[GeekDrew]

Would it be possible to setup insurance through the organization?

Eliminating the need to go through all of that was among the main points of the Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, and an individual mandate is at the core of what makes it all work. Getting a group rate through a small company/organization would certainly be possible, but may very well be more expensive than individually acquiring insurance on the government healthcare exchange.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Eliminating the need to go through all of that was among the main points of the Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, and an individual mandate is at the core of what makes it all work. Getting a group rate through a small company/organization would certainly be possible, but may very well be more expensive than individually acquiring insurance on the government healthcare exchange.

Right, but as we know because of conservative's attempting to sabotage it, things never fully worked quite like they should/could have. He's being practical in what options there are. They'd be less likely to terminate an organization deal than a single person if things keep moving in that direction though, wouldn't it? True that it would very possibly balloon the costs for healthier individuals as they're helping to pay for the one person (when my stepfather was dealing with cancer, his job asked if they could take him off the company plan and pay for an equal coverage individual plan in an attempt to get their costs reduced).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to tell him not to see what his options in the ACA marketplace would be, so definitely check that out. And maybe if their organization is successful it would be something to look at going with a plan for the group later.

 

[Lanyap]

You really need to talk to an expert in this area and check plans and prices before you take any action. Many of the plans available have very high co-pays, deductibles and premiums. Both my wife and I are retired and over 55 with a teenage daughter and our decent individual gold plan costs $2,800/month.