Missed Obamacare enrollment - what are my options

I missed ACA enrollment deadline due to a personal struggle. Unemployed at the moment, but in the middle of negotiating a contract (no benefits will be provided). What are my options? No pre-existing conditions. Would like to have some health insurance + dental insurance. State is GA.

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Do you have any income now? If not, maybe you qualify for Medicaid? It’s not great, but it’s cheap and better than nothing. If you don’t want that and would rather pay for better coverage (but that isn’t ACA qualifying for penalty avoidance purposes), there are some temporary health insurance plans you can check out:

Obamacare - practical discussion - #95 by xerty

And if you get a job, maybe then you won’t qualify for Medicaid anymore, which will trigger a special enrollment period where you can get back into an ACA plan if you want.

There are special enrollment periods for various reasons, like getting married/divorced or moving. Maybe a change in employment counts?

I looked for that, but the best I could find was losing your health insurance or losing a similar program eligibility like Medicare / Medicaid based on some change in status like income. It seems like OP would have had a chance to get into the ACA when they lost their last job, or at the end of the year, but if it’s been 60 days since their last job, that window is closed.

I lost my job more than 60 days ago, so special enrollment doesn’t apply.
Medicaid is a good suggestion. I didn’t think of it because I am in the middle of negotiating a contract and thought to myself, my income would be more than zero soon. So they would never approve me. Maybe I should apply for Medicaid for now. Not a bad idea.
Another friend suggested something “short term health insurance”. I am looking into that as well.

That would cover you as far as catastrophic healthcare costs in the short term. It doesn’t fullfill ACA requirements for insurance though so don’t expect all the same benefits. It is very cheap though for short periods and not a bad idea to cover you temporarily. If you’re not covered by an ACA plan for most of the year you’ll still ahve to pay the tax penalty since short term insurance doesn’t qualify for real coverage.

isdpe,

I thought I remembered someone saying there were hardship exceptions to missing the deadline.

If you state your income as $17K, you can get Bronze plans for like $2 a month. Then next year you say you got a better job and report correctly.

WTH? If your income is $17,000 a year, how do you pay $24,000 for a Bronze plan? Or anything else for that matter.

Well never mind, I read $2 a month as $2K.

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Allrightythen.

Apparently some states have later deadlines extending into January for signing up during open enrollment. Check your state to see if you can still join.

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