Consumers Cut Costs By Combining Limited Coverage Health Plans, Despite Penalty Risks

(By – Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News)

Last fall, Shalonda Brown decided she’d had it with paying nearly $1,000 a month for a family health, dental and vision plan through her job at an independent lab in Dallas. Casting about for an alternative, she checked out individual family plans on healthcare.gov. No dice: Their income was too high to qualify for subsidies and comparable coverage wouldn’t be any cheaper.

So Brown instead cobbled together three different policies that each provide limited coverage for her, her husband and 2-year-old daughter: a short-term plan with a $10,000 deductible that provides up to $1 million in coverage for just under a year; a critical illness plan that pays a $20,000 lump sum if one of them is diagnosed with invasive cancer, heart attack or stroke; and a dental plan that provides $1,000 in coverage. The total monthly tab: $390. Read more…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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