<div class="block">Its open enrollment season and we&#39;re running down the list of things you need to know ahead of securing health insurance. Lawrence Sprung, founder of Mitlin Finance, joined &#39;Stretching Your Dollar&#39; to talk about what freelance workers, in particular, should know about open enrollment. Sprung also talked about deciding which health insurance plan is best for your current lifestyle.</div>

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Stretching Your Dollar: How to Get Health Insurance as A Freelance Worker

Understanding. Health insurance isn't always straightforward, especially if you're getting it for the first time. So joining me now to answer some important questions is the author of Financial Planning, Made Personal and founder of Midland Finance Lawrence Sprung. Our law is great to see you as always. And let's start in this case with health insurance for freelancers. Why is it important for freelancers to have this? I listen. Health insurance and thanks for having me, Kristen. It's a pleasure to see you as well. Health insurance is important for protection. Although there's a an expense associated with it, the disaster that could come from not having health insurance and getting tremendous bills as a result could be detrimental to somebody's financial future if they don't have the coverage. Ok, very good. Where can freelancers turn to, to find the most affordable and comprehensive health insurance? So that is a very complicated question, but I'll try to give them some tips. First and foremost, if they are a new freelancer, maybe coming out of an employment situation, they may be eligible for continuing the coverage that they had with their current employer. If they're not coming from another form of employment and are a freelancer. It's important to check certain areas. There are, you know, Medicare driven or Medicaid driven programs which are income based. And then there are also programs in many states and federally funded that they may be eligible for a lot of what has to do with health insurance is state driven. So it's important to understand what your options are in your given state. And lastly, there might be associations that may offer them coverage or the ability to obtain coverage through those associations as well. Ok. So we talked about cost any sort of ballpark Lawrence in terms of what people should be expecting to pay for this. It really can range the gamut, it depends on how much coverage and what kind of coverage they want to obtain, right? If they, they want the Cadillac coverage that's going to be far more expensive than something that's just gonna minimally cover them. And it varies very widely from state to state as well. The way I would approach it is it's either a pay now or a pay later system, which means you can either pay higher premiums have better coverage, which means you're going to outlay less during the course of the year or you could pay less in those monthly premiums and then be responsible for more when you utilize the coverage. Are there any deadlines, Lawrence that people should be aware of to make sure that they do sign up for coverage in time. Yeah. So open enrollment begins November 1, just a couple of days from now and it runs through January 15th. So it's a little bit counter intuitive because you have until the 15th of January to get your coverage in place for all of 2024. It would basically just be backdated to January 1. Uh, but you do have from November 1st to January 15th to obtain the coverage that you need. Ok. What do people need to be mindful of when selecting health insurance? I think the most important two factors that they need to be mindful of are number one. What's their financial responsibility? What are they going to be responsible for when they go to their doctors or if they have a hospitalization, how much is their out of pocket overall expense going to look like? So they can have an idea of what their maximum potential outlay would be? And secondarily, we all love using the doctors that we like to go to. So it's going to be just as important to connect with the insurance carrier that you're contemplating to make sure that the doctors you want to see are in the network that you're ultimately looking at or potentially choosing. Ok, very good advice there. What about people who are unemployed? They might lose their job even between now and the end of the year or they even between jobs. How should they go about this? So if their former employer offered them coverage. They could, in most cases apply for Cobra again, state specific size of company specific. But in many cases, they would be eligible for Cobra, which would allow them to continue coverage for 18 months. So that is definitely the best option for them immediately. They could elect for that and simultaneously because they have a qualifying event, they don't have to adhere to November 1st to January 15th. If they're laid off today, they can go out and get coverage in the marketplace today. So excuse me, they could start looking for that coverage immediately regardless of that November 1st to January 15th deadlock. So we talked a bit about prices, obviously, for certain freelancers, it might be more expensive even for people in between jobs, Lawrence. I'm just curious for people. Do they also need to find additional dental and vision insurance to supplement their health insurance? That's a good question. I mean, typically those are less frequently used, less capital outlay than a potential risk with regard to health insurance. I will tell you my personal opinion. I do not cover personally myself or my family for uh vision or dental. I find that the premiums that you outlay for that typically cover the benefits that you're going to receive. So it's a wash. Basically, you're paying out the premiums to hopefully use that coverage and get the benefits back in terms of, you know, benefits over the course of the year. But I don't think that those two insurances are as crucial as the health insurance is interesting. So, of course, for freelancers, if you need to get insurance on your own, it might be more expensive. You want to make sure it covers you. But what if you're also responsible for a family Lawrence? How can you get coverage for the entire family? So I can speak for us here in New York. There are some options uh not very convenient necessarily, but we had a family recently that is a freelance uh family. Uh mom and dad are freelancers and uh they have uh two kids as well. They were able to get the kids on uh the Medicare or Medic version of health insurance that had very little premiums or low premiums in the state of New York. And then they only needed to get a plan to cover them well as a couple rather than the family. So it saved them a tremendous amount of money. That is an option that I would look into and see if that potentially would be available to your family and in your state as such great tips here. Law any last bits of advice that you would be for our viewers watching? This is open and Roman starts on Wednesday. Yes, I would say don't make a decision quickly. Don't assume that the coverage that you have today is gonna be the best coverage for you in the coming year. Take your time when the enrollment starts in November and you have the pricing and the coverage. Take the time to evaluate what your options are and make a decision. I wouldn't necessarily wait until January 15th to make that decision. But if you start that process on November 1st, you'll have plenty of time to make a decision before the end of the year. Alright, Lawrence sprung. Thank you as always great advice.