COBRA or ACA?

[Anonymous]

I am losing my job and have just been told that it will be $1,623.06 a month for COBRA for medical/dental, family of 4.

And the plans (which are the top ones offered) stink to boot!

DH is a contractor and does not have benefits.

Will we fare better with ACA? We live in DC.

Thanks for any insight/advice.

[Anonymous]

ACA is probably cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am losing my job and have just been told that it will be $1,623.06 a month for COBRA for medical/dental, family of 4.

And the plans (which are the top ones offered) stink to boot!

DH is a contractor and does not have benefits.

Will we fare better with ACA? We live in DC.

Thanks for any insight/advice.

Does anyone in your family have a chronic illness/medical condition?

[Anonymous]

One thing to consider is that you only have a limited period of time after work ends to pick either the ACA plan or COBRA. You should get online now and price out the ACA plans so you don't run out of time. And you can't drop COBRA once you pick it and then pick up an ACA plan.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't assume that an ACA plan with decent coverage is cheaper than the COBRA plan. I had a gold plan through the DC Health Exchange for my family of 3, and it was @ $1,900/mo. They charge per family member by age, so yours may be less if you and your husband are younger, and/or you qualify for subsidies.

[Anonymous]

Agreed with PP that you probably won't see huge price differences (for the premiums) between comparable plans. What ACA is likely to have is plans with lower premiums but with higher cost sharing and/or more restrictive networks. It's definitely worth checking out, and basing your decision on your specific family's situation. Thanks to the mandatory coverage aspects of ACA, the plans are likely to be comparable in what gets covered (at least on critical points).

[Anonymous]

Just go online and price a comparable market plan. We went through this 4 years ago (pre ACA) and made the mistake af holding on to cobra when it would have been much cheaper on the market. But our insurance has literally doubled in 2 years since ACA. We have a silver, high deductible plan for $1500/month.

[Anonymous]

Cobra can be purchased retroactively (check the details but I think if you buy it with 60 days if leaving you can get insurance back to the day you left).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: And you can't drop COBRA once you pick it and then pick up an ACA plan.

Yes, you can. You can drop COBRA at any time and get new coverage. This is no different than getting COBRA for a few months until coverage with a new job starts.

[Anonymous]

Go with ACA. Or at least look into first. We are a family of 3 with no major health issues except DH and I both need to lose weight. For BCBS Multi State (or something like that) it comes out to about $700 for the 3 of us. This includes a dental plan for DS. I don't know off the top of my head how much a dental plan was for DH and me, but it wasn't much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: And you can't drop COBRA once you pick it and then pick up an ACA plan.

Yes, you can. You can drop COBRA at any time and get new coverage. This is no different than getting COBRA for a few months until coverage with a new job starts.

This is not correct. You cannot end COBRA early to take an ACA plan unless it is during the open enrollment period or you have another qualifying event - like getting married.

You can drop COBRA for your new employer's plan.