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I'm a pharmacy tech and I work with amazing people. I love my job and am mostly happy.... except I don't have health insurance with my company. We are a small independent drugstore and health insurance isn't offered. My husband is covered by his parents for a few more years and I have private insurance. My provider doesn't offer maternity benefits and now that I'm married and sexually active, it really makes me nervous. I really don't wanna leave my job and the people I work with but I'm not sure what to do for insurance. Any suggestions would be great! thanks!
Re: find a new job?
Well, I think the question is, do you make enough / save enough to self-insure (meaning, pay healthcare costs out of pocket)? It really sounds like you don't feel that way right now, but you'd have to run the numbers on your own personal situation to figure that out. Most people don't of course.
I'm confused about your H - I thought kids got kicked off their parents' plans when they got married. You might want to look into that more closely.
So if you decide you need to be insured, you have three options: get it through your work, get it through his work, or keep your individual plan. If you keep the individual plan, you will be paying out of pocket for that bill each month, but you will be covered for your healthcare costs. So basically, you just have to look at which of the three ways 1. is an option, and 2. is most affordable. I don't just mean which is the cheapest plan, but which has the coverage you need/want and does not include stuff you don't care about.
So if your current provider does not have an affordable plan that covers what you need (maternity), you'll have to find a different independent provider or one of you will have to get coverage at your job.
My two cents - you both need catastrophic coverage always. Make sure you at least have that. Maternity - you should probably get that, you don't want to be turned away as having a 'pre-existing' condition if you try to upgrade your private insurance when you're a few weeks along, plus even if you got a new job right at the beginning of your pregnancy, you would have a waiting period before the plan started and wouldn't get fmla with that employer at the due date. Actually, your current place sounds like they are small enough to not have to give you fmla maternity as well, so that could be another negative there.
It's nice to be loyal to your company, but make sure you are putting yourself and your family first.
I'm confused about your H - I thought kids got kicked off their parents' plans when they got married. You might want to look into that more closely.
This I'd want to know more about...
Is there a reason your H is being covered by his parents other than he doesn't have to pay? Can he get his own insurance through work?
My guess is, covering both of you through his job will actually be cheaper than purchasing insurance individually, even though it's just one person. If that's not an option, than I agree with what the pp said...it really comes down to a numbers game.
If you ask around on the MM or baby boards, you can get an idea of what maternity/birthing costs can be. Since you can't guarantee you'd avoid a c-section, I'd be leery of going into it paying out of pocket. But that's just my opinion.
Our little Irish rose came to us on March 5, 2010
Don't drink the water.
Disclaimer: I am not an MD. Please don't PM me with pregnancy-related questions. Ask your doctor.
Not sure where you live but there are individual health plans that offer maternity. IT's not cheap- most start 400+ a month and if available in your area Kaiser is the cheapest. Check out ehealthinsurance.com for some quotes.
DH works for a small company and they don't offer group health insurance so I looked up information to provide to his boss regarding the cost.
The best option though would be to look into group coverage through you DH's job.
The new health care law allows children under 26, regardless of dependent status or marriage, to be covered under their parents' insurance policy if they do not have it available to them from their own job.