Health insurance what are you doing about it?

[Chris Lucero]

So I have made it this far and life has thrown a curve ball.  I figured my wife could carry our families health insurance while we venture off into real estate.  Well life happened and now it is just me and the kids, If I leave my 40 hrs a week I will need to somehow still provide insurance for me and the kids.  At first glance this looks extremely costly, what are you doing to provide health insurance if you are in a similar situation...

[Mike Roy]

Hi Chris - The way I see it there are a few options when one loses access to employer-sponsered health insurance.

1) Obamacare - There are significant federal tax credits available for those earning less than $100k.  Perhaps the advantageous tax deductions of real estate enable you to show a low enough income to qualify for an attractive tax credit and, thus, low net premium cost.  Healthcare.gov is your resource to price this out.  If your income is low enough, you may even qualify for Medicaid, and your kids may qualify for CHIP.

2) There are healthcare sharing ministries, such as Liberty Healthshare, that you may want to research if your earn significantly more than $100k.  These organizations pool like-minded individuals, usually on a religious basis, to share each others' medical costs.  The net effect is that they operate much like regular insurance, but usually at much lower costs.  There are some downsides to these organizations, so I would suggest doing some in-depth research.

3) Self-Insure - This option probably only makes sense if you are both healthy and wealthy enough to carry the risk and absorb the costs.  

I too would be curious to know what others think are the best insurance options for the full time real estate investor.