The 4 Biggest Health Insurance Tradeoffs Explained
Health Insurance Trade-Offs: What Matters Most Before You Retire?
A lower premium, a smaller deductible, or access to your preferred doctors—which matters most? Choosing health insurance means weighing trade-offs, and the right balance depends on your health, finances, and priorities.
In this episode, Matt Allen and Aaron Miller explore the decisions that come with buying individual health insurance. We discuss how to look beyond a single plan feature and evaluate the costs, coverage, and flexibility that matter to you.
You’ll learn about:
- How to weigh monthly premiums against deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums.
- Why HSA eligibility should be considered alongside your coverage needs and provider network.
- The differences between keeping an existing HSA and remaining eligible to make contributions.
- The trade-offs between comprehensive coverage and plans focused on major medical events.
- How retirement income decisions can affect eligibility for ACA premium tax credits.
- What to consider when shopping independently or working with a health insurance broker.
We also discuss how Plan Shaman combines independent research with access to broker support, giving early retirees a way to explore options at their own pace.
The central takeaway: understand what you gain and what you give up with each option. Comparing total costs, benefits, restrictions, and support can help you choose coverage that fits your retirement plans.
About the hosts
Matt Allen brings over a decade of experience helping early retirees bridge the health insurance gap to Medicare. Together with Aaron Miller, he helps make the options and trade-offs easier to understand through Plan Shaman.
Planning to retire before 65?
Plan Shaman provides free health insurance education for individuals and couples preparing for early retirement. Explore your options so you can make a confident decision when the time is right.
Created 10/09/2026
The 4 Biggest Health Insurance Tradeoffs Explained Transcript
Matt Allen (00:22)
Hmm. Okay.
Welcome back to another episode of Talking Shit. Shit, of course, is an acronym for straight health insurance talk. I am Matt Allen. Joined with me as always is Aaron Miller.
Aaron (00:37)
Hello friends.
Matt Allen (00:38)
Aaron, what are we talking about today?
Aaron (00:42)
Well, it's something that we highlight in a lot of podcasts, but we don't really go right at the problem always. And one of those problems is trade-offs. You know, when people are buying individual health insurance, there's a lot of options out there. And frankly, you can make a lot of them work for you. Not that they're all perfect, but the conversations that we have with people really depend on the trade-offs they're willing to make. And so I want to just throw some trade-offs at you and see.
you know, how you would you know, walk someone through those trade offs and, you know, making that decision.
Matt Allen (01:19)
Okay. All right. I love trade-offs. Trade offs e every every decision you make in life is a trade-off. Every single one. Because whenever you say yes to something, you're saying no to every other possibility. So trade-offs are rampant, absolutely rampant in health insurance.
Aaron (01:35)
Yeah. So let's go with the the top one. Premium versus deductible.
Matt Allen (01:43)
This one is way overblown. I don't understand why people are so obsessed with this. I understand there are high utilizers of the healthcare system. I completely understand that. I talk to those people all the time, every day. But for somebody who is somewhat healthy, maybe uses the health care system a little bit.
They get so caught up in having a low deductible. Like, yeah, but what if? What if what if I need something? I I need it to kick in quicker. Like, you're you're doing a very roundabout way of incentivizing you getting sick or hurt. Like
Aaron (02:20)
Right.
Matt Allen (02:21)
I'm I I need to pay more in premium to get a lower deductible in case something happens, so I get value out of my insurance. It's just such a wild way to think about it that.
That I I I don't quite grasp it. Now, if you have a chronic illness, if you are going to be hitting your out of pocket max every year no matter what, all right, maybe there's an argument for having a lower deductible, but at the same time, think about that. I'm going to hit my out of pocket max anyway. Well, why don't you save on premium then too? Like if you're gonna
Aaron (02:54)
Right.
Matt Allen (02:55)
max it out, pay the lowest possible premium every year.
I I still have yet to really find a situation where stepping up to from a bronze to a silver, silver to gold, gold to platinum really makes sense. a lot of people are very deductible sensitive when, in my opinion, what you should really be looking at is your out of pocket max and keeping your premium as low as possible. Because the premium's the only thing you're guaranteed to pay every year. That's it. And so
If you can even just like psychologically have a lower premium with a higher deductible, right out of the gate, my monthly expenditure is lower. Yes, I may take on more risk potentially with a higher deductible, but now I'm incentivized to stay healthy. Now I'm incentivized to not use the health insurance. And this very common mistake I think people make with.
Health insurance is that they should be getting some sort of value out of it. that they should be getting something for what they're paying each month. And that's completely looking at health insurance in the wrong way. Health
Aaron (04:08)
Right.
Matt Allen (04:09)
insurance should be looked at the same way you look at your life insurance, your disability insurance, your homeowners insurance, and your auto insurance. And what I mean by that is, I'm so glad I didn't have to make a claim. That should be the mindset around health insurance. It's just
We've created this behemoth of a major medical health insurance plan that now covers all these different things. And so now you're thinking I gotta get value out of it. And that's part of the reason they're so expensive. So I got a little off on a tangent there.
Aaron (04:38)
I like it.
Matt Allen (04:39)
But the trade off between, hey, I'm gonna pay more than a premium to get a lower deductible, well, if your out of pocket max doesn't really change, you're kinda just paying Peter to rob Paul or whatever the whatever the saying is. You
Aaron (04:52)
Sure. Yeah.
Matt Allen (04:53)
know.
It doesn't make any sense. I'm always gonna advocate lower premium, higher deductible. Always.
Aaron (05:02)
Yeah. And when it comes to the individual side, people are always asking, especially if they're coming from, you know, the corporate side, what about my HSA? What about my health savings account? And when does that kind of come into the the equation? Or can people get health savings accounts up and running with you know, just about any plan?
Matt Allen (05:26)
Look, I'm not blind to the fact that the HSA is like the greatest investment vehicle ever created. Cause it's triple triple tax advantaged.
Aaron (05:35)
Triple tax, what do they call it? Yeah.
Matt Allen (05:38)
You don't pay tax on the money you put in. It grows tax free. And when you take the money out, there's no tax. Like I I understand that. I fully understand that. And every financial planner who sends us somebody is like, Is this HSA eligible? They all want to optimize for that. They all want that. And everybody thinks they want that. Okay.
Here's the issue. You are now going to choose your health insurance plan based on an investment ideology.
Aaron (06:06)
Mm.
Matt Allen (06:07)
That doesn't make sense. You should be choosing your health insurance based on what's the best health insurance for you. And if it happens to have an HSA eligibility, great. We've now added a feature. But starting with the feature.
to find the right health insurance. Health insurance is a product to make sure you don't go broke in case you have a health care situation. You don't have health insurance so you can optimize your investment strategy.
It's just not why you have health insurance. I understand
Aaron (06:43)
Right.
Matt Allen (06:44)
the appeal and the allure because this is what happens when you're an individual. So in your scenario, you got somebody coming from corporate work insurance
They took the HSA eligible plan. They've been making contributions. Maybe they have an HSA with a whole bunch of money in it. Okay, great. When you go to the individual market, the only plans that are going to be HSA eligible are on the marketplace. So Obamacare. And they're bronze, which they did expand that. It's all bronze plans now. And then there are a couple like silver HSA eligible. A couple places have gold HSA eligible. But again, I don't really advocate for silver or gold. I'm kind of a bronze guy.
So if the marketplace makes the most sense for you and you have a bronze, hey, it's HSA eligible. Perfect. Great. We've now
Aaron (07:31)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Allen (07:32)
appeased everyone. But almost all people should be looking at alternatives to the Affordable Care Act. Because here's the issue with that Affordable Care Act plan is it, unlike your work insurance, that Affordable Care Act Plan's probably got an HMO network, maybe an EPO network.
And so now you're limited on the doctors and hospitals and providers that you can see with that health insurance. Now you've got your HSA eligibility. Great. You can stash away, you know, $8,500 a year if you're a family tax-free. It's not really that much money. I mean, it is and it isn't. Over 30 years, ton of money. Absolutely. And it grows interest tax-free. And on withdrawal, it's tax-free. Like I get it. I do understand that.
Can be a lot of money, but if you have a heart attack and you need a valve replacement and the cardiologist you want to go see and the heart surgeon you wanna go see doesn't accept your HMO insurance, what are we even doing?
Aaron (08:35)
Yeah, that HSA is gonna be a drop of the bucket.
Matt Allen (08:38)
The HSA is like you're you're you're having this HSA investment vehicle over freedom of provider choice for your health.
Aaron (08:47)
Yeah.
Matt Allen (08:48)
That's insane to me. That doesn't make any sense. Now, if you're totally fine with the network that you have with the ACA and you want to keep your HSA, that's great. We half of our clients are on the ACA. I don't have an inherent issue with the ACA, but most people who optimize.
Based on HSA eligibility, end up with a really substandard plan. They're selecting using adverse criteria for the plan. You should make the health insurance plan do exactly what you want it to do and need it to do to protect your financial well being. And if it happens to be HSA eligible, great. What a lot of people don't realize is if they come from work with an HSA, they can keep that HSA.
You simply need the HSA eligible plan, the high deductible health plan, in order to continue making contributions. The money
Aaron (09:42)
I see.
Matt Allen (09:42)
that's already in the HSA, that can continue growing tax free. That can continue to be their money. And when they eventually withdraw it for qualified medical expenses or other, it can continue to be tax free. So you don't have to forfeit your HSA because your health insurance changes. But more often than not, when we meet with somebody
and they're obsessed with having an HSA eligible plan, it's usually the wrong health insurance plan for them.
Aaron (10:10)
Interesting. Yeah, it's like letting the tax tail wag the dog, right? It's like
Matt Allen (10:16)
It's a great way to put it. The tax
Aaron (10:18)
Yeah.
Matt Allen (10:19)
tail, the investment strategy tail, wag the dog completely. and you know, the it's it's hard to quantify what those tax savings will be over the lifetime of the HSA, especially if somebody's younger. so I I certainly don't give it investment advice, but I do give really good health insurance advice. And a lot of these HSA eligible plans are substandard for health insurance. So
Aaron (10:43)
Yeah. Yeah.
All right. The next one is catastrophic versus comprehensive.
Matt Allen (10:54)
So these are different tiers of coverage that you can get. Catastrophic, that term has sort of been co-opted by the Affordable Care Act, unfortunately. When we're talking about catastrophic plans, we are not talking about the Affordable Care Act catastrophic plans. We're talking about
Aaron (11:12)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Allen (11:13)
private individual plans that only cover you for the big stuff. The catastrophic plans on the Affordable Care Act are still covering the 10 essential benefits. That's why they're still.
Really exp really expensive. If you want
Aaron (11:26)
They really are. Yeah.
Matt Allen (11:27)
a true catastrophic option, you have to get away from the Affordable Care Act. And then we can show you those. And then you can see real savings. But that's not really what you're asking about. You're asking about the difference between catastrophic and comprehensive.
Aaron (11:40)
Right. I'm a young, healthy thirty year old. Like I don't take any medications currently. You know, I don't go to the doctor probably as frequently as I should, right? I don't have anything coming up. But, you know, just in case, you know, I might want a comprehensive plan or catastrophic, right? We're kind of between two two levers we can pull.
Matt Allen (12:04)
So when we sell to an individual and we show them a catastrophic or a comprehensive, like what's the difference, basically? What's going on? Both of them are going to cover the major medical expenses: the heart attack, the stroke, the organ transplant, cancer treatment, emergency room, ICU, surgery, all that. That's all covered on both of them, no matter what. But if you go from comprehensive
To catastrophic, you're gonna see your premium go down considerably because we're cutting away a lot of the smaller things that are being covered. And those things are now being out of pocket. You are now just self-pay for those. So the types of things I'm talking about are your preventative care, which a lot of people freak out about. They're like, well, I gotta is it even health insurance and my preventative care isn't covered? Okay. I'm just going to encourage you, just Google full blood panel. What does it cost?
It's $200. Annual physical, what does it cost? $100. Mammogram on the high side, $400. Pap smear, $100. Prostate exam, $100. Colonoscopy, $2,000. That's a big one, but $2 grand
Aaron (13:18)
They won.
Matt Allen (13:18)
every five years, it's not that crazy. So
These people beating the drum for all their preventative care, like I need to have it, gotta have it, need to have it. If it doesn't cover it, I don't want it. Well, if you're on a catastrophic plan and you pay cash for those things, you're gonna save so much money over the comprehensive premium. I don't have anything against the comprehensive premium, but it's gonna have benefits for like chiropractor.
It's gonna have benefits for dermatology. It's gonna have benefits for those well child visits, for your annual physical, for your mammogram, for your colonoscopy. And so for the people who want those things actually covered, of course we have that option. We absolutely do. But for people like you who are young and healthy and don't really go to the doctor too much, I would argue, why are you prepaying for health care?
Because that's essentially what you're doing. When you're when you're wanting doctor visit coverage, when you're wanting preventative care coverage, when you want your blood work coverage, you think that it's it's the the insurance is just gonna give that to you because if you're getting your preventative care, then you're gonna be healthier and there's less likely of a claim. It's not why they do it. They
Aaron (14:28)
Yeah.
Matt Allen (14:28)
cover those things to get you used to going into
receiving healthcare all the time. They want it to be a standardized thing that I need to go to the healthcare system very often. And the majority of those preventative care things, they want to find something in a way ish. So then they can start charging you. Cause as soon as that preventative colonoscopy, they start finding polyps, it turns to diagnostic. And now
Aaron (14:54)
Right.
Matt Allen (14:54)
it starts going towards your deductible.
Aaron (14:57)
Mm.
Matt Allen (14:57)
So
I'm not saying don't get these things done. That's not what I'm saying. Go get your preventative care if you're if you're wanting to. But if you're on a catastrophic and you pay cash for those things, if you pay cash to go to the doctor, you pay cash for your blood work, you pay cash for an antibiotic if you need it, you pay cash if you gotta go to urgent care, but you maintain protection if you need a surgery, a hospitalization, disease care, ICU, horrible accident, liver transplant, emphysema, whatever.
If you just have your insurance covering that, you're going to save thousands of dollars a year in premium. Thousands. You can pre-pay for the healthcare if you want, though. You can have the comprehensive. And now when you go in, it's it's kind of like paying for convenience. The comprehensive plan is going to cover all that other stuff too. But now I don't have to be self-pay at the doctor. I can just hand him my card if I have the pro comprehensive. I can just hand him the card when I need my mammogram. I can just hand him the card when I need blood work.
It's already built in, but you are paying for it. It's absolutely baked into the premium of the product.
Aaron (16:04)
Right.
Matt Allen (16:05)
The insurance company isn't covering that out of the goodness of their heart. They're paying you to be the middleman to pay for those things. So you're being charged for it, but a lot of times, comprehensive plans, that's what people want. And that's absolutely something that we can offer them. And it'll cover all that stuff.
And we'll make sure their doctor takes it and all of that. So the real trade-off there is you will pay more monthly, no doubt about it. You will have a higher premium on a comprehensive. But if you utilize the healthcare system regularly, you're going to get your money's worth. If you are someone who doesn't really, what's that?
Aaron (16:41)
Or you like that convenience. Or if you like that convenience.
Matt Allen (16:45)
Or if you just want the convenience. It's kind of similar to having dental insurance. Dental insurance is kind of a break even proposition.
It really is. But a lot of people like the convenience of going to the dentist and just handing the handing the card in and hey, my cleaning's covered. They like that. Other people are like, I'll just pay cash. My doc my dentist has this thing, it's 150 bucks for a cleaning and x-rays. Okay, do that. Like neither of those things, having your doctor visits covered, your prescriptions covered, your preventative care covered, your dental insurance, your dental checkups covered, having those things covered.
Will never prevent you from going bankrupt, which is the
Aaron (17:24)
Right. Right.
Matt Allen (17:25)
real reason you have insurance is so you don't go medically bankrupt. The catastrophic or the comprehensive, they have the protection in place to make sure you don't go bankrupt. It's about the little things, it's more convenience that you're paying for. So that's the trade-off.
Aaron (17:39)
I like it. I like it.
Matt Allen (17:43)
And again, let me sneak something in too. Very
Aaron (17:46)
Please.
Matt Allen (17:46)
much like the lower premium, higher deductible, if you have a catastrophic as opposed to comprehensive, it incentivizes you now to take better care of yourself, to be healthier, to not need to go to the doctor as often. Because if you're paying cash for every doctor visit that you go to, I'm not saying abstain from care, but take better care of yourself. You'll save money overall.
Aaron (18:09)
Yeah. Here's a funny one. Making more money or making less money and getting a tax credit.
Matt Allen (18:20)
So th this is one of the more ridiculous things in this country, the Affordable Care Act. your premiums in large part are dictated by your income and not your health. It's health insurance.
That'd be like if you got car insurance and it was dictated by your by your income. It doesn't really make sense. It's not an appropriate judgment of risk. And so what you're talking about though is should I make less money and qualify for a tax credit to get help paying for my plan or should I make more money? I'm always an advocate of just make as much money as you possibly can. Get to work, build your business, serve people, profit. That's great. I love that.
I don't ever think any type of entrepreneur should limit the amount of money that they are earning so that they can get a tax credit and have more affordable health insurance. But if there are certain situations where they can have certain write-offs, a lot of that is easier to do when you're self-employed. Or they have depreciation, depreciating assets, they have rental properties. There's a lot of different tricks that you can do if an HSA actually does make the most sense for you.
You can 401k contributions. There's tons of ways to get your taxable income down, which is what the tax credits are based on is your taxable income. But I'm still an advocate of just go make as much money as possible. If you happen to be above the threshold, there are private options. There are options that do not care how much money you make. And a lot of times, if you can qualify for those medically, they're going to be a better plan than the ACA anyway. Where this trade-off gets more interesting, in my opinion, is for early retirees.
People are under 65 because they will typically have a lot more control over the income that they show. And a lot of early retirees don't realize the government, when they're determining your premium and your eligibility for a tax credit, they aren't looking at years past what you were making while you were working. They care about what are you earning, what's your modified adjusted gross income once you're retired. And so a lot of them are losing a huge salary.
Aaron (20:38)
huh.
Matt Allen (20:38)
A
lot of them a lot like pensions are kind of a thing of the past. A lot of them maybe aren't drawing Social Security right away. And a lot of them maybe they they have a Roth IRA and they can take non-taxable distributions because the the number they care about is modified adjusted gross income. So I've had plenty of early retirees who are like, Well, just tell me what to show and I can show that for income. And so if you get a couple
And they're showing 30 grand a year because they're living off savings or Roth distributions, they're going to get an enormous tax credit.
Aaron (21:11)
Yeah.
Matt Allen (21:12)
But then we also have other people, other of our early retirees, they're like, Matt, I didn't work my whole life saving and investing to retire at 59 and pinch pennies. I'm taking distributions and I'm enjoying my life. And like, I don't want to have my income constrained by anything. I just want to, I'm enjoying it.
I'm drawing social as soon as I'm eligible. I'm drawing, you know, at 59 and a half, I'm starting to take those 401k distributions. Okay, great. If you're above that tax credit threshold and you don't have eligibility for a tax credit, again, there are these private options that if you can qualify medically are going to be better than the ACA anyway. And so it's all just it's a trade-off, exactly like you're talking about. If you take the time to set up your retirement strategy and the way that you can pay for your lifestyle.
through savings, through Roth conversion, or not Roth conversions, but Roth distributions or things of that nature, you can absolutely qualify for a tax credit. But if you're somebody who like, I don't want to mess with my income at all, I don't want to ever have to think about it. You can forego that altogether and you can either buy a full-priced ACA plan, which is allowed, or we can look at the private options. So I think the trade-off really comes into play more so with the early retirees.
The entrepreneurs, I would never recommend, you know, turning down the a deal in Q four to stay under the tax credit threshold. That's absurd.
Aaron (22:39)
Right.
Matt Allen (22:40)
I understand the incentives are sort of aligned with doing that, but don't do that. Go make that money.
Aaron (22:48)
Yeah. I o I mean, since we have this hard cliff, I think we've seen maybe one or two situations where someone's like just over the line, these early retirees. It's like, all right, like can we reduce by five K during the year? Then it makes sense financially.
Matt Allen (23:06)
Yeah, I I remember a couple specifically who their retirement plan was to take seventy five hundred a month in a four hundred one K distribution, which is ninety grand a year. They're like, Yeah, that's enough for us to live on. Well, the subsidy cliff for a couple is eighty-four six. And it's like, okay, I completely understand if this is just where you're gonna be.
You won't get a tax credit. We can either buy an ACA. I think they still had Cobra eligibility, or we could look at a private plan. But if you are able to just lower it to seven grand a month as opposed to $7,500 a month, you're gonna get a $20,000 a year tax credit. Like, and so in those very particular situations, the trade-off there, like to just just lower it by $500, you'll net, you'll it'll be a net gain for you.
Yeah. So there are there are unique situations like that, yes. Mm.
Aaron (24:01)
And that's right. And that's
if the ACA is the spot for them.
Matt Allen (24:08)
If the ACA well, in that situation, I'd recommend the ACA anyway. If you're gonna get a twenty thousand dollar tax credit, I'm gonna want you to be on the ACA. We might need to supplement it, because they're probably traveling since they're early retirees. We'd wanna throw a supplement on there. But if you add supplement plus subsidized ACA plan, it's still gonna save thousands, ten thousand dollars a year, something like that. Yeah.
Aaron (24:31)
Yeah.
No. the final one I got is using a broker versus not using a broker.
Matt Allen (24:43)
There is definitely a trade-off on that. There are a lot of people, especially early retirees and entrepreneurs, who they want to do it themselves, they're DIYers. And I don't have any issue with that. Like if you find something that works for you doing your own research and all that, I think that's great. but very often they don't know what they don't know. And that is kind of the black hole in health insurance.
Is we've heard not an not an alarming number of horror stories, but enough horror stories where it's somebody bought something because they thought it was X, Y, and Z, or some random person called them 50 times in a week and they finally picked up and they're like, fine, I'll just buy this. And they were told it was something that it ended up not being. There's a lot of situations like that. I highly, highly, highly recommend using a broker like Matt Allen with iconic insurance and plan shaman.
Because I have over a decade of experience. We have contracts with all of the health insurance companies. We get paid by whatever you sign up for, we'll get paid. We don't have a dog in the fight except your success with the plan. We will selfishly make more money the longer you are a client. That's how it works. So if we sell you a bad product and a bad fit, you'll leave, you'll give us a bad review.
You'll tell people not to work with us. That's a horrible business decision for us. We are much better suited to make a much lower commission, but make it forever. That's way more in line with building a good business. And after doing this for 10 years, I absolutely know that's how to do it. But you'll also get the expertise to make sure you're in the right plan. You'll get ongoing customer support because I'm gonna want to make sure you're happy with the plan forever.
I can't tell you how many times we've heard people, hey, I bought something over the phone from this guy, then I went to use it. It didn't really work how he said it would, and then I could never get a hold of him again. We don't ever want that to be the situation. We want you to be able to talk to us whenever you want. We have a full-time client success person. Every broker should. So if they don't, maybe a little bit of a red flag. But the other thing is a lot of people potentially are thinking, I'm gonna have to pay more.
For my insurance, if I use a broker. What's your fee, Matt? What's what's the surcharge? What's the uptick? Because I know you're making a commission off this. And I am. I'm making a commission off this. But you as the client, if a broker ever tries to charge you a fee, again, red flag, because they
Aaron (27:24)
That's fine.
Matt Allen (27:26)
are earning a commission already. So walk away, run away from that person, delete their email, delete their phone number.
I am only getting paid the percentage of commission that's already built into the price of the product. So if you do meet with us, you do meet with a broker and you go, hey, I'm gonna save some money. Matt really helped us out, but I just didn't really like him. That beard looks stupid. Whatever it is. If they want to cut me out after I give them the advice and show them, hey, this is the exact right plan, and they go, I'll just go straight to the health insurance company and buy it from them. It's gonna be the same price. All you're really doing there.
is you're now letting the health insurance company keep that percentage that was earmarked for commission. They're just going to keep that. So there's never a surcharge working with a broker. Your long-term best interest is our long-term best interest. We have over a decade of experience helping people with this exact situation that you're facing and we'll always be there to help you with the plan. And that transition to Medicare, any questions that you have, changes in legislation, we're at the forefront of all that.
So the trade off of working without a broker or working with a broker, I think is so lopsided that there's really no reason not to work for a broker. And you might be saying, Well, of course he's saying that. That's how he makes money. Absolutely. You're one hundred percent correct. But like, when's the last time you bought a house? Did you use a broker?
Aaron (28:55)
Probably.
Matt Allen (28:56)
Probably. Do you do your own taxes?
Aaron (28:59)
Probably not.
Matt Allen (29:01)
Do you do your own investment strategies? A lot of people do do that. A lot of
Aaron (29:04)
Yeah.
Matt Allen (29:05)
people a lot of people offload that too. It's the same thing. Just just
Aaron (29:07)
Right. Yeah.
Matt Allen (29:09)
have an expert in your corner.
Aaron (29:12)
Yeah, and you know, part of the reason we're building Plan Shaman is for these early retirees who, you know, maybe don't trust or maybe they've had a bad experience in the past with a broker and they want to do their own research but don't want to be sold to. I mean, that's we're we're giving the best of both worlds. You can do your own research, no pressure, to buy, buy, buy. Stay on your own time, do your own research, and you got a broker to back it.
Matt Allen (29:42)
Yeah, and if they find a plan that works for them and they want to execute and they want to enroll via plan shaman, then they get that ongoing client success, customer support as well. Like that's already built in. So you don't ever have to talk to us if you don't want to. If you just don't want to be sold something, you want to do your own research, here you go. Plan shaman. We'll talk all about different options, different scenarios. We'll show you actual quotes, actual products. You can just see them for free. You don't have to sign up for anything. You don't have to give us your email or your phone number.
We're not gonna be blowing you up. It's just literally here. It's free. Find it. If you then want a broker on your side using that plan, we'd love to have you.
Aaron (30:25)
Bingo. All right. I feel like those are the big ones, but man, there's a lot of trade offs.
Matt Allen (30:32)
So many. All day, every day, man.
Aaron (30:35)
That's all it is.
Matt Allen (30:36)
Mm-hmm. All right. This has been another episode of Talking Shit. Shit, of course, is an acronym for straight health insurance talk. I am Matt Allen.
Aaron (30:47)
And I am Aaron Miller.
Matt Allen (30:49)
Thank you so much.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Should I pay a higher premium for a lower deductible? Usually not. Your premium is the only cost you're guaranteed to pay each year. Compare plans by premium plus out-of-pocket maximum, not deductible alone. A lower premium with a higher deductible often costs less overall.
What is the difference between catastrophic and comprehensive coverage? Both cover major events like surgery, hospital stays, cancer treatment, and emergencies. Comprehensive plans also cover routine care, such as physicals, labs, and screenings, which raises the premium. With a catastrophic-style plan, you pay cash for routine care and keep the savings.
Are ACA "catastrophic" plans the same thing? No. ACA catastrophic plans still must cover all ten essential health benefits, so they stay relatively expensive. When we say catastrophic, we mean private plans built around major medical events.
How does my retirement income affect my health insurance cost? ACA tax credits are based on your modified adjusted gross income in the year you have coverage, not your past salary. Early retirees can often manage that income through Roth withdrawals, savings, or when they start Social Security. For 2027 coverage, credits end above $63,840 for one person or $86,560 for a couple.
Does using a health insurance broker cost extra? No. Broker commissions are already built into the premium, and the price is the same whether or not you use one. If a broker tries to charge you a separate fee, treat that as a red flag.