Obviously, we would never advise someone to drop health insurance if they can avoid it. Murphy’s Law would dictate that this is an invitation to a big (expensive) health incident.
Now… if you feel you have no choice but to give up health insurance, I’d encourage you to consider one or more of these options:
- A short-term health plan. This won’t cover pre-existing conditions, but would be a relatively inexpensive way for you to get catastrophic coverage for a short period of time. Get quotes and enroll here.
- A limited benefit plan. This plan provides money to help with the upfront costs of health care (i.e. doctor visits, etc.), but there is a cap on what they pay. So there is no catastrophic care, but help with costs on the front end of medical care. There are several levels of benefits to suit different budgets. Get quotes and enroll here. (If you follow the link, choose “Health Access” at the bottom left of the page).
Those two are both going to be cheaper than what you’d pay for a traditional health insurance plan, but the price will be in triple digits. To slim down the budget even further (or, more preferably, to supplement one of those options), consider these:
- An accident plan. These plans will pay you if you are hurt in an accident of some kind — typically the payment is up to a flat amount of $2,500, $5,000, or something like that, in order to reimburse you for medical expenses. The idea is that if you need emergency medical care, there’s a great chance it’s because of some kind of accident/injury. Get quotes or enroll here.
- A critical illness plan. These pay some flat amount if someone has a heart attack or stroke or is diagnosed with cancer. You can buy coverage amounts from $5,000 — $50,000. You can quote and enroll in critical illness insurance (or combine the accident plan and the critical illness plan) with Assurant Health here.
You can also read a broader explanation of these types of plans by checking out the page for each under the “Products” tab. If you can’t afford the health insurance, you can cobble together a decent level of coverage combining one or more of these.