<p>Can someone please explain the health insurance choices for a new grad? D’s university health insurance will expire in August, and her parents (we) live in the UK so we do not have US health insurance to cover her. Her current job does not offer health care. We left the US before the new health care system was put in place, so I really don’t know how it works. </p>
<p>Where can she (or I) go online to find out options? How much can she expect to pay per month? How much coverage should she get? She has no real chronic conditions, although she would like to continue on birth control and acne medication. She is a DC resident. </p>
<p>Any help is appreciated. It’s hard to guide your child long distance, when you don’t know the system. </p>
<p>You can go to healthcare.gov. We are in the process of looking into this right now also. The costs vary depending on what type of plan you choose and what her income is…if she qualifies for tax subsidies. (If her income is high enough to not qualify for subsidies, you should consider buying an individual plan off the exchange if you can find one. I discovered that at least for the insurance we are considering the list of providers differs greatly between insurance offered on the government exchange and off the exchange.) In general, I’d say the cost is approximately $150-300/month. </p>
<p>Her income at the end of this year is the one that will be used to determine costs of healthcare for this year. Wash DC is a medicare expansion state so she may very well qualify for medicare which will be much cheaper. Otherwise choose a silver plan off the healthcare.gov site which will give her the cheapest out of pocket costs and subsidies.</p>
<p>You can use contributions to an IRA to reduce her income if you need to.</p>
<p>I would suggest she talk to friends and find an agent who can help her decipher the options in her location. The premiums are the same whether you use an agent or not and they have a more broad based experience seeing how the various options are actually working in practice.</p>
<p>If she is losing existing coverage there is usually a limited period of time in which she can access the ACA plans, so it would be smart to move quickly on this.</p>