Ask HN: Good Health Insurance in California? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Good Health Insurance in California?

Long story short, I've done COBRA for a few months, but now I'd need to switch to a long-term health insurance. I own a consultancy company and I plan to use it to "hire" me and provide me with health insurance.

Is there any good insurance that you recommend? I searched online for a while, contacted a few, and all I could find was scammy ones.

Thanks in advance for any help!

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I had blueshield ca for a while as self-employee, but I wouldn’t call it “good”. It certainly was expensive. Family of 5, 20% copay, $5000 deductible for over $1000 a month. That was two years ago. It’s probably worse now.

To be frank, I don’t think such a thing as good “health insurance for the self employed” exists in CA.

Aside from the scammy ones you mention, you can get with one of the big guys and pay an arm and a leg, or roll the dice with one of these startups with new business models you see popping up.

If you are healthy, Kaiser is a good choice. Since they are an HMO they are able to give you a low premium with a low deductible. Service can be spotty, but if you don't need a bunch of care it can be a good deall.

Anecdotally, many people I know in Northern California dislike Kaiser, and many in Southern California love it - but it's been years since I've really polled my acquaintances on it.

Do you have any other employees in your consultancy company other than yourself and your spouse ? If yes, only then you can get "Group" Insurance i.e. through the company. Otherwise, you will have to buy insurance personally through the obamacare exchange etc.

If yes, then find an insurance broker who can help you with a Group insurance. One such online broker is ehealthinsurance [0] but it is better to find a local broker whom you can talk to in person. To find those, you have to go to healthcare.gov [1] and click on local help. You can then get a list of brokers in your area.

Overall, this is a very exhausting process especially as a small business because most insurance companies are not interested in group insurance unless you have at least 3 or more employees (in my experience). Not worth their time otherwise. And your spouse doesn't count as an employee when it comes to health insurance even if they are employed by the busines

[0] https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/small-business-health-insur...

[1] https://localhelp.healthcare.gov/

Thanks a lot! Unfortunately I'm the only one, I tried signing up with Justworks but encountered the problem you mentioned.

I recommend sticking with COBRA if it makes sense, I was in a similar situation and did COBRA for 18 months and it was about 20% less with 25% more coverage than what my family and I are on now. After that we did a blue cross blue shield and it is like all of them, a giant pile of suck with high deductable.

Thanks. I honestly wanted to get a cheaper insurance. COBRA is incredibly expensive.

Ya I gotcha, I thought it was going to be cheaper to go on the market and was sad when it was ~15-20% more than my Cobra. I have a family thought which adds to that.

how much is it?

~$1,300 a month for a married couple. Mafia and cartel can't even begin to describe the situation here.

You need to insurance hustle ...

Your wife needs to get a job with family benefits for you.

Or you need to enroll in a class somewhere with benefits.

Or you just need to stay real healthy and not have kids.

And welcome to the USA!

Do you have a primary care doctor you like? Not all doctors accept all insurance plans, so sometimes it’s helpful to work backwards from that. You can call their office and ask for a list of accepted plans.

No, I don't have a primary care doctor.

https://www.coveredca.com/

You might qualify for Special Enrollment due to a life event.

I spent a while looking at reviews some time ago. Kaiser consistently has the best reviews in California.

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