Health insurance for self employed spouse, should we get a divorce?

Forgive the clickbait title but I couldn’t resist. I suppose this is mostly me venting, although if anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them. US-based (IL), in case that isn’t obvious.

My spouse is planning on quitting her job next year and will become self employed. I’m excited for her and this will be an adventure for us both. Her income the first few years will probably be low, but I make enough to support us both – although it will be tight with not a lot of margin for error.

But we’ve been looking at her health insurance situation and it’s very dispiriting. She has chronic health issues and she must be insured.

I have a typical office job. My employer-provided insurance is affordable for me, but as soon as I add a spouse it becomes untenable. (We do not have any kids.) My individual monthly premium (HDHP) is just under $200 but it jumps up to over $1k if I add my spouse. Yet thanks to the family glitch, she is not eligible for an ACA subsidy because she has “access” to “affordable” health insurance based on my individual rate, not the employee+spouse rate.

So we’ll have to get a plan off the marketplace. At least we can deduct that since she’s self employed, right? Apparently not, once again for the same reason. Because she has “access” to insurance through my employer, she can’t deduct it from her self employment taxes.

So I looked at COBRA. Including the 2% service fee we’ll be at around $700/month for COBRA. I briefly poked around the healthcare exchange and I think we can find something around $500-$600 on the exchange, although I haven’t done a deep dive on this yet.

I understand and respect that $700-$900/month (hers + mine) on insurance is not criminal and that plenty of people, especially with kids, pay more than that. But it is frustrating that we are paying a rather significant penalty because we are married. If we were not married, she could avail herself of subsidies and/or deduct her premiums from her self employment taxes – a substantial savings.

To be clear, we have no plans to get divorced. But I wanted to share my frustration.

Am I missing anything? If not, who wants to come to our divorce party? 🎉

submitted by /u/plowt-kirn
[link] [comments]Forgive the clickbait title but I couldn’t resist. I suppose this is mostly me venting, although if anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them. US-based (IL), in case that isn’t obvious. My spouse is planning on quitting her job next year and will become self employed. I’m excited for her and this will be an adventure for us both. Her income the first few years will probably be low, but I make enough to support us both – although it will be tight with not a lot of margin for error. But we’ve been looking at her health insurance situation and it’s very dispiriting. She has chronic health issues and she must be insured. I have a typical office job. My employer-provided insurance is affordable for me, but as soon as I add a spouse it becomes untenable. (We do not have any kids.) My individual monthly premium (HDHP) is just under $200 but it jumps up to over $1k if I add my spouse. Yet thanks to the family glitch, she is not eligible for an ACA subsidy because she has “access” to “affordable” health insurance based on my individual rate, not the employee+spouse rate. So we’ll have to get a plan off the marketplace. At least we can deduct that since she’s self employed, right? Apparently not, once again for the same reason. Because she has “access” to insurance through my employer, she can’t deduct it from her self employment taxes. So I looked at COBRA. Including the 2% service fee we’ll be at around $700/month for COBRA. I briefly poked around the healthcare exchange and I think we can find something around $500-$600 on the exchange, although I haven’t done a deep dive on this yet. I understand and respect that $700-$900/month (hers + mine) on insurance is not criminal and that plenty of people, especially with kids, pay more than that. But it is frustrating that we are paying a rather significant penalty because we are married. If we were not married, she could avail herself of subsidies and/or deduct her premiums from her self employment taxes – a substantial savings. To be clear, we have no plans to get divorced. But I wanted to share my frustration. Am I missing anything? If not, who wants to come to our divorce party? 🎉 submitted by /u/plowt-kirn [link] [comments]Read Morer/HealthInsurance

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