The snowball keeps accumulating! Open enrollment for 2021 Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) plans began this morning.
I've been using an alternative called Liberty Healthshare for the last 2 years. In 2018 I earned too much money and had to pay back the credit on my ACA plan, so I switched. At the time it saved me money. The problem? Liberty Healthshare is an alternative to regular health insurance, meaning there aren't a lot of doctors who take it. This was my excuse for not seeing a doctor in the last two years, simply not knowing where I could use my insurance and whether Liberty would pay (reviews I read in the last year indicated they were slow to pay). Then a couple months ago Liberty had a massive price increase ($100/mo). This is on top of the fat premium (pun intended) they have been charging me for being overweight ($79/month).
Bottom line: even if I didn't qualify for a credit under ACA, the new plan is virtually the same cost as my current insurer, but it is a Florida Blue plan, which is accepted all over the place. I will no longer be worried about using my insurance.
The tricky part will be making sure my income is close to what I estimated for 2021. My goal will be to ensure I get as close as possible to the income I reported. I haven't done much research, but it looks like there are some levers I can pull. For example, selling stock at a loss seems like one way I could lower my income if it is tracking too high.
For those of you using Obamacare, do you have any suggestions for keeping your income in line with estimates?
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