Is there such a thing as affordable individual health insurance?

DesignerMama

MH's company is dropping their group coverage. The conversion plan we are eligible for starts at $660/mo for the three of us. Ugh. So now we're looking into individual plans. Anyone have a decent one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? And preferably one that covers prenatal care/delivery in fewer than 18 months. I really don't want to wait that long to TTC again :-(

korr04

I don't know what state you are in, but in So. California we have Kaiser Permanente.  It's an HMO network with their own hospitals and such.  It's not my favorite but it sure bailed us out of a jam when DH was laid off a few years ago.  I had just had a baby via c-section and was considered overweight and DH is borderline diabetic and overweight and they still gave us a decent policy for under $300 a month for 3 of us. 

Sulla

I was self employed for 8 years before getting married and looked into every option.

Is there any kind of professional association you or your husband can join? Often those (especially for professions where there are a lot of freelancers) offer group plans to members with the added benefit of not pre-exing conditions, or basing your rates on your specific medical history. You just become part of a group and they cover every one equally.

When I lived in DC, the best bet was through one of the major local hospitals. Maybe see if there's something similar. GL. It blows. Now my husband owns his own company and we pay through the nose for us and his employees.

LeoChic

Honestly, the $660 a month is high -- but you are going to pay a lot more than that for private insurance with a maternity rider.

DH is self-employed so when I was SAHM, we were paying $700 for the 3 of us.  Once we realized that we wanted to start thinking about another baby, we priced out a maternity rider and it was going to raise our rate to $1200 a month for the three of us.  I went back to work just for the health insurance.

I will say that we were using Anthem as our carrier and they did NOT have a waiting period for prenatal care/delivery.