I am wondering if anyone knows of a group traders can join in order to qualify for group health insurance rates? I had to sign up with an ACA plan this year because all the health insurance companies in my area pulled out of the individual policy market. I literally can not buy a policy from a major health insurer where I live. This resulted in a substantial increase in premium. I am looking for some sort of group I can join in order to qualify for a group plan. Any ideas?
If you're a professional in some field there's usually a professional society you can join to get group rates on all sorts of insurance. e.g. I'm an electrical engineer and I've belonged to IEEE for years. I have cheap life insurance through them and I know they have health insurance options as well. I looked into their health insurance when I was looking into becoming an independent contractor. Family coverage health is really expensive, I should warn you. It's like $1000/month.
Unfortunately I am not currently a member of any professional society. I am currently paying close to 800/mo with a 5k deductible for an ACA plan (single). Seems like if it is 1000 for a family plan it would be cheaper for a single in some group plan.
Actually that $1000/month figure is from about 6 years ago, but you're right that singles pay the lowest premiums.
You need to make sure you're comparing apples to apples. A family plan for two adults and two kids where the adults are 27 is going to be cheaper than an individual plan where the individual is 54. Anything other than a big company plan where the company has negotiated rates based on the average age of their employees is going to have a huge price difference based on age, which is the primary price driver for insurance. Back to the original topic, I did some extensive research on this right after the election and found that the premiums for a small company plan (sub-100 employees) were pretty comparable to the exchange. So you'd have to get a whole lot of ETers together to make it financially worth your while.
This is actually a really interesting question. Did you finally find the answer to it? For example, I use life insurance and am completely satisfied with what it provides. I advise you to visit the website of this company, as I think that you can find a lot of useful information for yourself there. Also, there is a life insurance rate chart by age, which will help you quickly decide on the price and type of insurance. Many of my friends have been using this insurance for many years and they are completely satisfied, there have never been any problems, I hope this service can help you. Good luck!
Molina generally has the lowest premiums, but watch out for the high deductibles and maximum out-of-pocket cost if you have a serious problem. And their choice of doctors is more limited than with other providers (maybe because they pay less for claims?), and the doctor I saw from their network seemed to be less ethical than he could have been. For example, to get the "free" annual physical, the doctor I chose as my primary care physician from Molina's network forced patients to make two appointments -- one to get blood drawn, and the other to discuss the results. Of course, only one of the appointments is covered in full by the annual physical required by the Health Insurance Marketplace (aka Obamacare). And this doctor also upsells unnecessary electrocardiograms for a little extra income for him and an extra expense for patients. Molina's claim forms had cryptic codes with numbers and no text for what the code is for. I recall asking their customer service about this, and they told me I'd have to ask the provider. I worked around this by finding a somewhat hidden pdf file on their website and/or searching for the CPT (current procedural terminology) codes on the Internet.
Update; I was talking to a neighbor and he mentioned that I could get VA health insurance due to the fact I was stationed at Camp Lejeune for over 30 days back in 1982. I am now in the process of applying. This is due to the well water contamination issue.
Keep in mind that usually means VA care rather than insurance. That may be great if you have a good VA facility near you, or it might be not so great if you have a crappy VA facility near you.