<p>Any ideas for how/where to get health insurance for my children when the family, COBRA coverage ends? Thanks.</p>
<p>megdog, what state are you in. I’ll send you a PM.</p>
<p>How old are the kids? Many states have various health plans for minor children–colleges have health plans for kids attending their Us, which often includes summers and out-of-state/out-of-country. We’re happy that our kids are now covered again under H’s policy until they turn 26 or get insurance through their own employer. For a while, S had to get coverage through his U & then we had to buy him his own policy (he was rejected by a HMO–Kaiser–due to pre-existing conditions).</p>
<p>thumper, IIRC, they’re from WI. Megdog, are your children under 18? If so, you might see if your state offers health insurance for uninsured children. Ours does, and the premiums are income-based…the coverage seems very good and includes dental as well.</p>
<p>Welcome to the “wonderful” world of Badger Care/Forward Health. There are wait lists for some of the plans. [ForwardHealth</a> Home Page](<a href=“http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/forwardhealth/]ForwardHealth”>ForwardHealth | Wisconsin Department of Health Services)
for your children [BadgerCare</a> Plus - Children and Families](<a href=“http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/badgercareplus/children.htm]BadgerCare”>http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/badgercareplus/children.htm)</p>
<p>megdog, I would suggest going to this website. [Foundation</a> for Health Coverage Education](<a href=“http://www.coverageforall.org%5DFoundation”>http://www.coverageforall.org) You should be able to find a bunch of helpful information there. Go into the options matrix guide and select your state. it will tell you about public as well as private programs that are available if you view the guide pdf file.</p>
<p>Talk to the insurance company you already have and just ask them. We were in a similar situation a few years ago and dreading the time when our Cobra would run out. What idiots we were for not just calling the company earlier! We were able to continue our insurance with them for a smaller monthly fee (same coverage) than we were paying under Cobra. We were just stunned and then wanted to kick ourselves for not calling sooner. </p>
<p>Anyway, this worked well for us. Might work for you too.</p>
<p>megdog-
We’re happy that our DS is now covered again under my employer policy until he turns 26 or gets insurance through his own employer. Thank you, Mr. President.</p>
<p>For one year, we purchased a high deductible individual plan through ehealthinsurance.com
It was a plan by United Healthcare but there are many options based on state of residence.</p>
<p>I agree that it can’t hurt to call the insurer you are currently covered under. We called the insurer that covers our family & they offered to cover S without any exams at a lower premium than any other insurance we could find as soon as his U coverage ended, so there wouldn’t be any gap in coverage. </p>
<p>We tried einsurance.com but couldn’t there was only one insurer that writes for our state on that site & after filing out MANY, MANY screens of info and waiting over a week, he was rejected because he has a pre-existing health condition (tho he has not needed treatment for it in a very long time). :(</p>
<p>Hope you are pleasantly surprised by working with your existing insurer!</p>