Health Insurance

This blog began as tips on how we survived. Here is a tip I wish we had known, it would have saved us DEARLY.

I complain to husband regularly that his company's health insurance is the worst. The Worst. He swears its not that bad, its just that my previous employer, whose insurance we were under from the first day eligible until my husband's new job plan came through, was THAT good. I learn everyday how good my old employer's insurance was. I wish I had realized it at the time.

This is my tip. Should you find yourself in a situation where you are on COBRA and your spouse gets new insurance, do not automatically jump ship. Obviously COBRA will run out and the new employer has a limited window of when you can join. But, if you determine that you can join during the open enrollment period later, and continue on COBRA, check out the numbers.

We are now paying out of pocket nearly twice as much as we were on my COBRA. That would not be bad if the service was the same, but its not. Had I to do this again, I would have stayed on COBRA (which we were allowed to do), and waited until the open-enrollment period with my husband's plan, we would have saved hundreds of dollars and had better care.

Lesson learned (not that I hope to ever be in that boat again!)