I'm self-employed with an outrageously expensive Aetna insurance plan for my business. The premiums are increasing to a seemingly astronomical $1,650/month for my family of four.<p>Degree of difficulty: Wife and older son(11) have some medical conditions and have typically been tough to insure.<p>I haven't been paying too much to the Obamacare and related initiatives but I figured I'd do some research before committing to renewing. I know that there have been some changes made to allow people who were previously considered uninsurable to secure insurance.<p>We are in Florida, I'm not sure if this matters.
That rate is actually in-line with other family plans. What makes it more expensive is you don't have the employer contribution component being self employed. I have a PPO plan that is actually more than that per month but my employer covers ~75% of the cost.<p>Some states, like MA, have a "Health Connector" which is a marketplace for insurance. Unfortunately FL isn't too progressive when it comes to state funded insurance initiatives so you probably won't find much, particularly if you are in the non-poverty income bracket. The self-employed get the shaft when it comes to health insurance in the US because they lack collective bargaining power against the insurers. .<p>I'm not too well versed in what is going to become of "Obamacare" as nothing major has been rolled out. Some of your more immediate options are:<p>- Consider looking into a p/t gig that includes health insurance.
- Have spouse look into p/t gig (Municipal/Town Job!) that includes insurance. This is what many tradesmen in US do.
- Look into joining a trade group or professional group for discounted rate
- Look into state funded insurance marketplace.
As of September 23rd, 2010, you should be able to get less expensive insurance for you son: <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/ChildrensPCIP/childrenspcip.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/ChildrensPCIP/child...</a><p>It also looks like there will be a federally run plan that your wife could be included in: <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/preexisting/states/fl.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/preexisting/states/...</a><p>I purchased the domain, <a href="http://healthcarelawfacts.com" rel="nofollow">http://healthcarelawfacts.com</a>, to answer these types of questions. I really need to get that going... Anyone wanna help? ;-)