Cali Obamacare

No longer live in Cali, but retired at 61 so not eligible for Medicare. Obamacare is working out great for me.

As I'm able to make my income pretty much whatever I want it to be, was able to get a family plan with very low deductibles and ZERO premium. Round numbers, if income is less than $20K per year, would qualify form Medicare (or MediCal). The sweet spot form is an income of roughly $22-24K. Zero premium can be obtained with a higher income, but the very low deductibles require the income to be in this range.

Signed up on the marketplace last December and the plan has been very good. If you are able to control your income, you can play with the numbers on the Marketplace to see where your "sweet spot' may be.

Obvious troll. Why else would someone post in a completely unrelated forum, when an appropriate forum is available.

I've never had Obamacare, but it's great for people who don't have insurance through their employer.

I was hoping perhaps there were a bunch of early retirees who live in San Diego in this forum. Biden's looking like an even worse senile assclown than I previously thought. Not sure what will happen with Obamacare if the Tea Party 2 controls Congress in 2023. Does anybody know if the Cali state government is committed to keeping Obamacare reasonable if it goes to shit at the national level?

What are you worried about? Obamacare just survived another Supreme Court decision and is here to stay, more popular than ever. More money has been pumped in to help upper-middle class people with premiums. There's no chance of a GOP repeal at this point. How ridiculous to blame Buden?

We have nationwide PPO through my employer which is better than you can get on the exchanges. But even that may improve as more money is allocated to the exchanges.

We've had MediCal forever.

TBH San Diego would be an awful place to early retire. Usually people LEAVE San Diego to retire early. Cash out on your home after it rising 10x in price, move somewhere cheap.

The deficits put the US at risk of being seen as a big Greece, which will cause a crisis at least as bad as 2008. If that happens, Obamacare will be on the chopping block. Even though it's to my advantage, I think it's dumb that there's only an income test for subsidies, no asset test. Even retired I'm OK $100-$200 a month premium. But I want to pay to join Medicare early, not fatten the pockets of private insurance companies even further. I can handle a fairly high deductible. And I really don't want to be covered for all the expensive, torturous treatments for terminal illnesses that have a snowball's chance of hell of working. Just shoot me up with opiods and let me go in peace.

Depending on how your assets are invested, there is tremendous flexibility to keep your taxable income low enough for massive Obamacare subsidy while still having cash flow to live comfortably. As a law, that’s a massive flaw. Millionaires getting free health care. As an individual, it’s a nice benefit. Millionaire getting free health care.

How do I know this ? I’d rather not say.

sir this is a Wendy's

@Mark: "Depending on how your assets are invested, there is tremendous flexibility to keep your taxable income low enough for massive Obamacare subsidy "

"Massive subsidy" is a comical way to characterize a few hundred dollars per month, especially given the buy-borrow-die tax-avoidance strategy of our countries billionaires:

But it's an interesting point. It would be impossible for a millionaire-next-door type with a traditional IRA to withdraw money from said IRA, without increasing his taxable MAGI (indexed to the Obamacare subsidy). I suppose someone with a ROTH IRA could pull it off in a completely legal way -- that is keep his MAGI low enough to get free medical care.

*country's

Random: mutual funds with a large cost basis. Home equity loans. Just two examples of ways for cash flow without a taxable event.