Money Savers Part 3: Healthcare Alternatives

money-savers-part-3

When I went into the teaching world, I never imagined I’d be worried about paying for health insurance. In my mind, of course it would be affordable for someone who chose to spend 8+ hours a day educating other peoples’ {germie} kiddos. Clearly I was mistaken. Fortunately, it wasn’t insanely expensive if my husband and I each took out our own policies. However, that changed drastically when we decided I’d stay home with Baby Girl.

Writing about this right now makes me angry, y’all. I’m just going to be honest. If we used my husband’s ISD insurance and chose the MIDDLE coverage plan for our family, my husband would pay $1,036 per month. That is a third of his paycheck. How is that okay?! Considering we’d like to have more kiddos in the future, we would have probably needed to choose the higher coverage plan which would cost him almost $1,300 per month! I don’t understand how teachers can be expected to take care of their family’s health with that kind of price-to-salary ratio. It’s just not right.

Our First Try

When my insurance coverage through my ISD ended, we found that it was much cheaper for me and Baby Girl to take out our own policy directly through an insurance company. Who woulda thunk it?! This saved us from spending double with my husband’s ISD insurance. But, of course, the coverage plan we were on was discontinued in 2016. Once again, we needed to figure something out.

Our Solution

For a while we heard about several different healthcare options while listening to Christian radio. At the time, we weren’t in a place where we needed to cut that cost and didn’t know of anyone who had tried these options to see how they worked. By the time my coverage ended, though, we were on a serious hunt for and decided to check some of them out. Thankfully a friend of mine talked to me about Christian Healthcare Ministries.

I don’t want to give too much information about CHM for fear that I might describe something incorrectly and make things too confusing! However, if you are in an insurance “pickle” or just want to find a health care option that is in line with your values and what you can afford, I would strongly encourage you to check them out (click the link I added). CHM doesn’t work like traditional health “insurance”. You pay more out of pocket when you need to get health care, but you save SO much monthly that it is much easier to save up the amount you’ll need to pay when the time comes. In addition, CHM is an opportunity to connect with other believers in their time of need. You can choose to offer extra financial help and pray for families who are struggling. It truly is set up like a ministry.

For now, Baby Girl and I are trying out the middle healthcare plan and pay an amazing $170/month. This is allowing us to save so much each month that we will be able to afford doctor visits out of pocket and STILL save on our monthly insurance costs. We will continue to see how things go from here, and I will gladly update on how our experience is going! In the meantime, what does your family do for healthcare coverage? Have you struggled like we have? Have you found a solution that works for you? I’d love to hear your story!

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