Starting your own business is an exciting time but challenging as well. As you begin to build your business, you will not only have to secure the right permits and  any licenses that might be needed, but you will have many other decisions as well.

Selecting a CPA, incorporate or go the sole proprietor route? But the one thing that we really need to keep in mind is that if you are on your own, how will you get health insurance? It is the law now and we are required to have health insurance or face fines.

You can call a private insurance company and investigate the rates or you might check into Obamacare. If you are not making a lot of money, the government will give you a subsidy to cover all or part of your premium.

 A word of caution: you will be quoted a rate, based on your income and the government will subsidize the rest of the premium.  If your income exceeds the amount you said you were making, then you will receive a bill from the government for the amount that they paid for you.  So you need to  pay attention to that. I personally know 2 people who had Obamacare and made more than they had expected and both suddenly ended up with whopper bills that they had to payback. One was $4,500 and the other was $9,000. So if you go that route, pay attention to your wages because the government will know and they will bill you immediately.

When my husband lost his job, we lost our health insurance. We had zero income at first and when we looked into Obamacare, our premiums were going to be $800 each and a $13,000 deductible, EACH! It was based on our income from last year and were not interested in hearing our “sad story”.

So we opted for no insurance for the time being.  Now as our taxes are coming due, we will be fined for not having insurance. Our fine will be about $2,600.

I have been searching for other options and I came across something that was interesting, cheaper, reliable and more in control our premiums AND it is in compliance with the government’s healthcare mandate.

It’s called medical sharing. There are a variety of factors that contribute to what your premium is based on but  I do know when I looked at plans for us, we could select plans anywhere from $170 -$500 for BOTH of us. I personally know people who use these plans and are extremely satisfied with the results.

You will basically join in the group and pay an  determined amount each month. That money goes into a  group account and when a member submits a bill, a team negotiates the bill down to the lowest amount they can and then the bill is paid from the group account.

One group is: LibertyHealthShare.org  and the other is Medishare.org.

I found  these 2 groups but I am sure there are more. You can just research it and if you find other companies, please post them here so others can have this information as well.

Each of these two companies have different requirements, different rates, different factors that they look at to determine your contribution, but both of them are reputable and are a viable option for anyone who is looking for other ways to keep their families protected.

I hope that this information is helpful to you.

Until Next Time,

Janice

EG Team Member