If you're self-employed you may be wondering what your options are for health insurance we're going to discuss those options in today's video hi there my name is Sarah and welcome to the health broker's channel at health brokers we are licensed nationwide so if you have any questions whatsoever, please
feel free to just leave them in the comments below or you can give us a call here at eye health brokers at 888-410-0344 there is absolutely no charge for our services and as always please make sure to like this video liking this video helps make it more visible to others who are looking for the same types of
information and of course subscribe as well because we do release these videos every week we release videos about health insurance and money-saving tips we want to make sure that our viewers and our clients are as informed as possible so today's video is going to be about health insurance options for the self-employed entrepreneur stay tuned one of the first options that we're going to talk about is
marketplace insurance plans under the affordable care act also known as the Obamacare marketplace plans cannot discriminate against pre-existing conditions so if you have a pre-existing condition this may be a great option for you additionally all plans offered on the marketplace must offer what's known as essential benefits or essential services and a lot of these essential benefits are offered at no cost now
I'm going to put a full link to all of those essential services in the description below and make sure to check out our video that's all about marketplace insurance if you want to learn a little bit more many people are actually eligible for tax credits when enrolling in a plan through the marketplace if your income falls between a certain level under a certain threshold then you may be eligible for a tax credit
which can be reflected as a discount on your monthly premium now this can save you I kid you not thousands of dollars so it's really really important when you're estimating your income for the upcoming year to try to be as accurate as possible you're going to want to try to lower your magi and you can do this in a myriad of different ways and again make sure to check out our video all about how to calculate your magi for marketplace insurance plans so we suggest that you either work with an
accountant to figure out if there are any deductions that you might be missing that way you can make sure to take advantage of these premium tax credits and of course work with a broker to make sure that you're finding not only the right plan for your budget but for your needs as well and there are so many options on the marketplace as far as types of insurance plans that you can choose from you can choose
from HMOs which are going to offer you usually a lower monthly premium with a little bit less flexibility or a PPO which will have usually a higher monthly premium with a little bit more flexibility or epos which are somewhere in between there's also has hdhp's we're going to talk about that in a second and there are these four metal tier categories that you've probably heard about there is the
bronze the silver the gold and the platinum now a lot of people are under the false misconception that the metal tier of your plan basically has something to do with the type of coverage that you'll receive and that's actually not true it's not it really isn't determined by the benefits that that plan offers what it all boils down to is the cost-share so when you're with an insurance plan basically for any services that
you receive your insurance is going to pay for a portion and you're going to pay for a portion so with these metal plans all it's indicating is what that cost-sharing is so with the bronze level plans you're going to be responsible for 40 and your insurance carrier will pay for 60 silver you pay 30 they pay 70. the gold you pay 20 they pay 80. and platinum you pay 10 they pay 90. now generally speaking you will
notice that as you move towards platinum your monthly premiums are going to get higher and as you move towards bronze your monthly premiums are going to get lower this is basically to offset that cost-sharing so if your insurance carrier carries more of the cost-share your monthly premiums will be higher if they are responsible for less of the cost-share then your premiums are usually going to be lower now
that's not all you need to take into consideration though because monthly premium as wonderful as it is to save money on a monthly premium you really need to make sure that your plan reflects your needs if you're looking to save a little bit more money you may want to look into a high deductible health plan or help specifically you may want to look into one that has a health savings account or has now a lot of
people love these because of that triple tax advantage we're looking at your fire community so make sure to check out our video that's all about high deductible health plans and because they are a great option but as always they're not for everybody if you think a marketplace plan might be right for you then you want to head on over to healthcare.gov to check out all the plans available now you can utilize
the website is year-round but there are really only certain times of the year in which you can enroll so first there's the open enrollment period now this is every year same time from November 1st to December 15th however it may actually be longer dependent upon your state and you may also qualify for a special enrollment period if you've undergone certain qualifying life events the list is pretty extensive so I'm going to put a link to that in the description below as well but basically you may qualify for a
special enrollment period if you've had a change in your insurance a change in your household size or a change in location so if you're outside that open enrollment period and you're thinking that a marketplace plan might be right for you make sure to check out the link that I'm going to put below to see if you qualify for a special enrollment period the truth of the matter is without a premium tax credit
or even with it a marketplace plan may be more money than you're looking to spend on health insurance and that's completely valid there are other options so if you're somebody that wants health insurance to maybe just cover their basic needs or perhaps you just want it there in case of an emergency then you may want to look into a short-term medical insurance plan now they have majorly evolved in recent
years in fact many short-term medical insurance plans offer a lot of the same benefits as marketplace plans you can get plans that offer doctor visits prescription drug coverage catastrophic coverage hospital procedures and a lot more one of the major benefits of a short-term plan is that you're going to have those out-of-pocket maximums with a much lower monthly premium so if you're unfamiliar with
the term out-of-pocket maximum basically insurance plans will have a cap on what you may be required to spend for in-network covered services that part is very very important so if your plan's out-of-pocket maximum is seven thousand dollars once you surpass that amount your insurance is going to take on the rest of the costs so should you undergo some very serious medical procedures things that
would ordinarily be extremely costly once you hit that out-of-pocket max you're no longer responsible for those bills as long as we're talking about medical services that are covered by your plan and are in the network again very very important additionally with short-term plans you can usually access nationwide PPO coverage which is very hard to find with a marketplace plan and it's excellent if you're
somebody that's looking to travel you want to take your health insurance with you wherever you go but like I said one of the major benefits of a short-term plan is, of course, the cost savings a young healthy person can access a plan for as little as a hundred dollars per month and can access many of the same benefits as those marketplace plans additionally you're going to be able to customize your coverage to
basically, meet your needs but it's not all sunshine and roses when it comes to short-term medical plans there are some things that you need to remember so short-term medical plans are not available in all states so you need to check to make sure that they are available in your location they're also not going to cover any prenatal services so if you're pregnant or if you're planning on starting a family probably
not ideal for you also you can only access a plan for up to 36 months in most states after that you're going to need to enroll again additionally these plans are not ideal for families with small children because little children just have a lot of doctor's appointments and if you have pre-existing conditions then your short-term plan probably won't cover those pre-existing conditions in the first year but if it's inexpensive not that serious to treat then they probably will cover it in the second year
moving forward if you enroll in a multi-year plan however if your pre-existing condition is serious or expensive to treat then a short-term plan may not be right for you if you're interested in a short-term plan then you're going to need to contact a broker because short-term medical insurance plans are not available on the marketplace but working with a broker will help you to eliminate some of the legwork because they'll present you with multiple different carriers multiple different plans so that way you don't
have to contact each carrier directly in addition to your basic and most important health needs there are obviously other needs that you need to take into consideration as well namely things like dental vision etc a lot of our clients and viewers are especially concerned about dental insurance and that is entirely understandable because without insurance and sometimes even with it those dental bills can really really stack up and it's not something that you can exactly put off if you're in pain now luckily there are
a couple of options the first is of course marketplace insurance so when you're on healthcare.gov and you're looking at different plans you can actually pick a plan that includes dental insurance or you can add it on if you so choose however just something to be aware of it's really really important, especially with dental insurance that you pick a plan that matches your needs you may find that there are limited options on the marketplace as far as dental insurance you may find that there are way more HMOs than PPOs and generally speaking if you're somebody with specific or more intense dental needs then you
may want to look at a PPO and what a lot of people don't understand is that you can actually find private dental insurance plans for much less money than you would think actually a private dental insurance plan is usually going to run you somewhere between fifteen dollars to fifty dollars per month which are pretty insignificant when you compare it to basic health insurance additionally if you're going with a
private dental insurance plan you're going to have the ultimate flexibility because you can really choose a plan that perhaps your dentist already participates with or maybe they have higher out-of-pocket maximums something to really make sure that it's the right plan for your needs again with private insurance you're going to need to work with a broker if you're going to go the marketplace route then all the plans available you can find on healthcare.gov last let's just talk for a brief second about health
sharing ministries so if you're watching this video you're probably searching youtube searching the internet trying to find out what your options are and you may come across something known as a health sharing ministry now this is not technically insurance so it's not really something that we can endorse there have been great success stories but there have also been great horror stories so if there's something that you're interested in just please please proceed with caution and then, of course, there are some folks
that may qualify for Medicaid there's also private insurance in general again you're going to need to work with a broker this is a good option if perhaps you're ineligible for a premium tax credit on the marketplace but you need a little bit more coverage than a short-term plan can provide or maybe it's not available in your area and then if you're sort of in-between right now maybe you've just left a job that provided health insurance you may want to look at cobra at least for a few months while you figure out exactly where you're going and what your needs are if you like this video please make sure to click like
like I said earlier it makes this video more visible to others who may be searching for the same type of information and as always subscribe to stay up to date on all things health insurance what did you think what are you doing for your health insurance needs what has worked best for you as an entrepreneur let us know in the comments below and as always if you have any questions whatsoever you can reach us in the comments or give us a call here at eye health brokers at 888-410-0344 there's no charge for our services we're licensed nationwide.
and we are more than happy to help thank you so much have a great day bye you.
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