
Ask HN: Health insurance options for founders while bootstrapping - recmend
Does anyone have any recommendations on health insurance for founding team of two? We&#x27;re based in California and currently bootstrapping the company.<p>We looked at Covered California and heard we might also qualify for medicare. Any links or resources for us to get started?
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tptacek
Go to CA Marketplace and get the highest-deductible plan you can find (it will
be the cheapest plan as well). You'll be paying out-of-pocket for your doctor
visits, but that's what you want to be doing: the plans that meaningfully
offset routine medical costs _cost more_ than you'd pay just doing it out of
pocket.

If you're both male and you have no prior health history of any sort, you can
also go direct to Kaiser, Anthem, Blue Cross, &c and buy private insurance.
There will be a medical questionnaire to fill out, and it'll take a little
while to be approved, but it will ultimately be cheaper than the marketplace
plan.

However you do it, do it carefully and follow up with your provider to make
sure you're enrolled properly. Ours screwed up a bunch of stuff (both
enrollment and billing) and we have some horror stories about the results.

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sfrailsdev
Even if you have prior health issues, they can't reject you from a private
medical plan.

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cylinder
Head to the CA healthcare marketplace site, go through the enrollment form.
List your income as what it is ($0?) right now. It will tell you what you
qualify for. In NY, I got a better plan than when I was employed and it's
free, with no copays or deductibles either.

Everything goes through the healthcare exchanges now. Just go through that
process.

If you're both young and healthy, don't have spouses and/or children, I would
recommend just getting a catastrophic plan for now.

~~~
AznHisoka
Which plan is that? I'm in NY and looking for a plan

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simplecase
It will typically be the cheapest plan. If you are younger than 26 yrs, then
you can stay in your parents employer health plan.

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dragonwriter
> We looked at Covered California and heard we might also qualify for
> medicare.

Unless you are a senior, you probably don't qualify for Medicare. You may
qualify for Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid plan), which is a _very_ different
thing.

Covered California should identify any eligibility for either Medi-Cal or
Covered CA exchange-plan subsidies.

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redtexture
What fails about the information that is provided by
[http://www.coveredca.com/](http://www.coveredca.com/)

