HN Explorer

Ask HN: Freelancers, what health insurance do you use?

18 points by sockgrant ↗ HN
I'll be needing personal health insurance soon. I live in Denver, but plan to be traveling the US for awhile (and afterwards, possibly internationally).

What are the cheap options?

What are options that are high quality?

What are good options for traveling (domestic US? internationally?)

11 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 30.8 ms ] thread
dangrossman
I got an individual Aetna plan ("PPO 3000 High Deductible") from http://ehealthinsurance.com. It costs approx $90/month for 100% coverage (no coinsurance/annual limit) after a $3000 annual deductible. I'm 28 with no pre-existing conditions, though nobody will be pricing based on that pretty soon -- I have no idea what will happen to the premium after 2014.
gee_totes
Whoa! That's a great deal! I've been looking at insurance options in preparation for the exchanges opening up, and what I've been able to find are plans going from $150-3,000 in NY State.

Full disclaimer, I know nothing about health insurance and have never had it, so my understanding of the terms and how things work probably account for the wild price discrepancies.

jasonlfunk
Mine is pretty similar. I have a high deductible ($2500) plan Wellmark (BCBS) and it's around $70/mon. I'm pretty sure I've read that it will be illegal in in 2014 because my deductible is too high.
phasevar
I use Humana. I'm single, 38, male, in good shape, non-smoker and I pay ~$180 a month for health insurance.

Get a high deductible. A low deductible is nice as part of a group plan, but when you're not on a group plan you're just over paying for extras. Instead, get a health savings account (HSA) and save income (tax free) for the purpose of paying for your health services before you meet your deductible.

Keep your health insurance primarily for major issues. You want insurance there if you get cancer or you're involved in a life threatening accident. You're better off paying for the minor things with an HSA.

For International travel, get travelers insurance. I spend a lot of time in Asia and I use FrontierMedEx. They'll pay your doctors fees in cases of an emergency and will fly you back to the US if you need major care. You only pay for travelers insurance while you're traveling and it's reasonably cheap too. I pay less per month for FrontierMedEx than I do for Humana.

Good luck!

sockgrant
How much is a high deductible?
ScottWhigham
It varies -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-deductible_health_plan

sockgrant
I was speaking specifically about his deductible.
ScottWhigham
How much is a high deductible?

Then you should have phrased your question to reflect the information you wanted to know. Whether I answered what you meant to ask or not should not matter - a "Thanks!" and an upvote should have been forthcoming because a member of the community answered your "general question" with quality information. There's no value in being snarky or disrespectful with anyone here just because (a) you asked a generic question, and (b) someone answered with a generic answer.

logn
I think the comment above mine is meaning to be helpful because your account is new. Also, he's right. The comments here are usually not made to be conversational. Granted, people respond to each other, but usually comments refrain from chit-chat. Even adding a simple 'Thanks' will occasionally get downvotes because it's noise. People will often add some reason why they're saying thanks.
sockgrant
I wasn't being snarky. I was clarifying what I meant.

Don't take things so personal.

phasevar
I think mine is $2500. I'm thinking about raising it to the maximum. I'll just keep the deductible amount in my HSA.