42% of Freelancers Don’t Have Health Insurance. Here’s How to Get Covered

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Being without health insurance means taking a big risk.

Main points

• If you don’t have health insurance, you could be facing catastrophic health care bills.
• There are several different ways to get health insurance.
• You can get coverage through your spouse’s employer or buy your own plan through the health insurance marketplace.

There are many benefits to becoming a freelancer. For one thing, you can usually set your own hours and schedule instead of being locked into preset hours. If you have multiple obligations, such as children or elderly parents to care for, that make it difficult to commit to a standard work schedule, then freelancing can be a good choice.

Also, as a freelancer, you are not tied to a specific office location. If you want to move to a part of the country where the cost of living is more moderate, you may have that option.

But there are some pitfalls you may encounter as a freelancer. For one thing, you may struggle with a lack of paid time off. And while you can always top it up Savings account in trying to give yourself that opportunity, you may struggle to take a break from not a financial standpoint, but a workload perspective.

Another downside of being a freelancer? You do not receive employee benefits such as access to a pension plan and subsidized health insurance. And that last one is a big deal, because buying health insurance on your own can be expensive.

In the last one Everly survey, only 58% of freelancers said they have health insurance. But the 42% of freelancers who don’t have coverage could be making a massive mistake.

The risk of not having health insurance

Even if you’re a fairly healthy person who rarely gets sick, you never know when a random illness or accident might land you in the emergency room. Without health insurance, your bills can run into thousands of dollars.

Plus, you never know when you might need a diagnostic test that costs thousands of dollars if you have to pay for it in full. And so in many cases, the cost of health insurance will be more than paid for itself if a medical issue or injury occurs.

How to get health insurance as a freelancer

If you’re a self-employed person who’s married, your most cost-effective option for health insurance may be to enroll in your spouse’s workplace health plan, if they have access to one. Alternatively, you can buy a plan from the health insurance marketplace, which was created by the Affordable Care Act.

Now, you must follow the rules for getting coverage through a marketplace plan. You can register for a long time open enrollment, which runs from November 1 to December 15 every year. The process of signing up for coverage may vary by state, and you may be eligible for a health insurance subsidy, depending on your income (this option is usually available to people with lower incomes, but is being phased out for moderate ones).

That said, if you had health insurance through a job but lost your coverage (say, by going freelance), you may qualify for a special enrollment period to sign up for a marketplace plan. This means you won’t have to wait until the annual open enrollment period.

Whether you’re new to freelancing or have been doing it for years, it’s important to factor the cost of health insurance into your budget and make room for it. Going without insurance has the potential to be a very costly mistake. And the last thing you want to do is regret your decision to go freelance because of a pile of medical bills.