Ask Jesse: How did you cover health care costs in law school?
During the law school years, how did you cover health care costs, particularly with having babies. Were you able to be on an insurance group plan somehow?
This subject has been weighing heavy on my mind as my husband lost his job a year ago, and I have only been able to find part-time work. Because of health histories, buying a private plan is out of the question, and our COBRA runs out in a few months. If we cannot obtain a full-time job that provides insurance, we are going to be in trouble.
Just wondering how you did it! -Tara
I think it ironic that they refer continued health care coverage after leaving a job with health benefits as “COBRA.” It is a monstrous plan with numerous exclusions that raises its head once a month when it takes a huge bite out of your monthly budget.
Needless to say, health insurance is one of the most hotly discussed topics today. It was not as much of a hot-button issue when I went to law school but it was a need that we definitely wanted to address in our budget.
When I was in undergrad, we took advantage of a low-cost major medical insurance plan offered to students of the university I attended. When I transitioned to law school, we went the same route, choosing to save a little each month towards paying for minor visits out of pocket.
Also, any doctor visits were to the university physician. We also made an effort to ask for samples when we were given prescriptions because it cut down on medication costs. And we just didn’t go to the dentist or eye doctor, aside from one time during law school, which we paid for out of pocket (we called around and found which dentist offered the best new patient special and went with that one).
At one period during law school, we even briefly considered doing away with with health insurance coverage completely for a short time and saving our premium because we did not use the insurance coverage much at all and funds were really tight. However, I knew it would be foolish to do, as one major medical event could land us in dire straights. So we stayed with the student plan.
We had Kathrynne during school and were blessed in that our student insurance plan did cover most of our maternity. We went to a free-standing birth center, which only charged around $4,000 for the entire birth and pre- and post-natal care, making our out-of-pocket costs very minimal.
A few years ago, I decided to get an individual plan for our family, as the group plan where I was working really stunk and was costly. We settled on an HSA (Health Savings Account) offered at our local bank, and purchased a qualifying high deductible health insurance plan with a major health insurance company.
This arrangement is similar to what we did during law school, as the plan is a major medical plan, but the plan now covers 100% after the deductible. Also, the savings no longer goes into a bucket in my budget but goes into an HSA, where the contributions are tax deductible and the growth and all withdrawals for health purposes are tax free. Nothing like a triple whammy! For the self employed, I believe this is one of the best ways to go. (By the way, many employers’ health plans also offer the HSA option.)
If another option comes along that is better than this, I will gladly consider it, but this seems to work for us for now.
Jesse Paine is a licensed attorney who owns his own law firm. He’s married to Crystal and is the numbers nerd of the MoneySavingMom.com team! If you have a question you’d like him to answer in a future column, you can submit it here.
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