Short term health insurance options

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Da5id
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Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2016 7:20 am

Short term health insurance options

Post by Da5id »

My older son's college health insurance plan will expire 13 days before his job begins. The college health plan isn't required to offer COBRA, so they don't choose to do so. His company (reasonably) won't start his health plan until his first day of employment. Loss of coverage constitutes a qualifying event for ACA special enrollment, so he can be covered by ACA.

Some options are:

1) add him to my ACA plan for a month
2) sign him up for a solo ACA plan for a month
3) go uninsured for part of a month (not OK with me)
4) ???

If he does option 1 or 2, can he sign up retroactively if something happens and he needs medical care that would cost more than the ACA premium in the uncovered days? I know you can sign up retroactively for COBRA for example, but couldn't find the right information in the healthcare.gov site under special enrollments to be sure if that is the case for ACA as well.

Any input appreciated!
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RickBoglehead
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Re: Short term health insurance options

Post by RickBoglehead »

Make sure you understand that ACA coverage begins the first day of the month after you pick a plan.

If you lose coverage, you qualify for special enrollment. If he will lose coverage in the future, he must pick a plan within 60 days before coverage will end, and then must submit documents within 30 days after picking the plan. So, he could pick a plan, then never send the documents in. Similar to COBRA.

https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage-out ... nt-period/
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daheld
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Re: Short term health insurance options

Post by daheld »

I have been in a very similar scenario having a gap in health insurance between jobs. I have always just called my homeowners/apartment/auto insurance agent and purchased a month or two of catastrophic health insurance. Some of these could have changed since the passage of the ACA, but back when I did it (a decade or more ago), it was really affordable and basically just paid for hospital treatment if I were in an accident. I always figured I could tough out a sinus infection or some similar ailment but wanted coverage if I had an accident. This may be worth checking in to.
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Da5id
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Re: Short term health insurance options

Post by Da5id »

Thanks for the comments. We'll sign him up for an ACA plan a month in advance.
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Eagle33
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Re: Short term health insurance options

Post by Eagle33 »

Can one get ACA for only 1 month?

Here is a site describing Short-term health insurance by state that you may want to read before making a decision.
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Lee_WSP
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Location: Arizona

Re: Short term health insurance options

Post by Lee_WSP »

You can get a one month plan through United healthcare's Golden rule
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Da5id
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Re: Short term health insurance options

Post by Da5id »

Eagle33 wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 12:22 am Can one get ACA for only 1 month?

Here is a site describing Short-term health insurance by state that you may want to read before making a decision.
You can get ACA for any period of time, starting at any time. If you don't wish to start at the beginning of a calendar year, you need a qualifying event to be eligible however..

You can stop an ACA plan at any time. Most simply by not paying your premium, but probably best to tell the company. Becoming eligible for company health insurance seems like a good reason to stop.
Cranberry
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Re: Short term health insurance options

Post by Cranberry »

This might depend on your state.

Here, he would need to sign up and pay during the prior month, (by the 23rd??) in order to have coverage. No documentation needs to be sent for the simplest option: pay in full, see if he gets a PTC when he files his taxes.
If you don't make contact to cancel the policy, however, they will claim that he was covered, is delinquent and they will want payment.
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