Health Insurance and Disability Question
Sorry to hear about your spouse's health issues. May he have a speedy and, as far as possible, full recovery. The Patient Protectection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) is now the law of the land. Among its many provisions are that insurers may no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they may not put lifetime caps on benefits, and they may not charge different premiums based on any criteria except age cohort and geographic area (i.e. rates may be higher for 50 year olds than 30 year olds, but sick and healthy 50 year olds living in the same area pay the same). If he gets government health coverage because he's on disability, this may not matter. On the other hand, you might find it better to put him on your employer's policy, because you like the coverage better, the employer covers part of the dependent premium, or some other reason. In any case, they can't discriminate against him or you based on his condition. ETA: Rates may vary by geography as well as age.
HSA rules are different in some regards than deductions allowable under Pub 502 which deals with medical expenses deductible in Schedule A of your tax return. Pub 969 governs HSA's and similar reimbursement plans, and the guidelines are as follows: Insurance premiums. You can’t treat insurance premiums as qualified medical expenses unless the premiums are for: -Long-term care insurance. -Health care continuation coverage (such as coverage under COBRA). -Health care coverage while receiving unemployment compensation under federal or state law. -Medicare and other health care coverage if you were 65 or older (other than premiums for a Medicare supplemental policy, such as Medigap). Since your wife is still being treated like an employee for health benefits, and you are not on COBRA, thus not eligible for a deduction. You may qualify under the unemployment provision depending on the cause of her disability. The insurance company is must assume you do have a preexisting condition you are unaware of.  The reason for that is that Affordable Care Act precludes the Insurance company from denying coverage of them if you do.  Insurance companies are businesses.  They are in business to make money(unless you have a nonprofit insurer).  They can not do that if you can buy insurance only when you need for them to pay out.  So even though you may not have a preexisting condition, they are precluded from requiring an examination that would detect the most expensive preexisting conditions (hidden cancers, neurological, autoimmune disorders).  So the companies must do what takes business sense and either deny you coverage or charge a rate that covers the risk they would be forced to take.   In your question on travel there was a response that suggested you get international health insurance instead of travel health insurance that would be considered credible coverage.  You are trying to save money which on a personal level is a good idea.  However that is against the societal and business need that you maintain health coverage during your healthy times to cover the costs of those who need expensive treatment.  So you will be monetarily penalized should you choose to reenter the society of insured people.  Once you have paid the higher rate for up to 18 months you should be able to get a better policy for people who have had continuous coverage.  Alternately you may be lucky enough to start working for a company that provides health insurance with out requiring continuous coverage. Taxi regulations exist to protect the public. It's not some racket to keep people out of the market.  Insurance: Uber/Lyft only insure their drivers while they are loaded. Meaning any other time they are driving around, even if they are driving to a call, they aren't insured. If they get in a wreck, their own car insurance won't cover it because they don't have taxi insurance which is a shit load more expensive than regular car insurance.  Red-lining: Red-lining is where taxi companies will not server certain neighborhoods, meaning they will neither pick up nor drop off in the area.  Discrimination: All classes are protected under taxi regulations with serious repercussions for discrimination. This also includes people with disabilities, like the blind and those in wheel chairs.  Rates: Taxi rates are typically approved by the city so that companies can't constantly change them. This is a big one as far as Uber/Lyft goes.  Really what it comes down to is Uber/Lyft need to operate on a level playing field. They are a taxi service. There is absolutely no question about this and it isn't up for dispute. They need to obey the same laws that taxi companies are still held to or be fined into oblivion. If you actually bother to read the taxi regs for your city, you will see they are there to protect you as a customer and have little benefit to taxi companies. About the only rule I can think of are the regulations regarding paying your fare. For all the rest, the taxi companies would be better off without because they wouldn't be forced to serve people they don't want to.  In my experience, the cab companies don't care about additional competition because it's the nature of the business. The fact that Uber/Lyft completely disregard all the regulations is what they have a problem with.  //Source: 8 years in the taxi industry. A *licensed* electrician is pretty much guaranteed to have the skills. A union electrician is almost guaranteed to fuck a project schedule  up.  &gt;Unions also fought for and got us a 40 hour work week and overtime pay. Benefits and disability insurance.   Snore. Clichés are getting tiresome. You pay for disability insurance. Benefits came about as a way to get around WWII pay freezes. Look it up.  &gt;currently politicians are rolling back those protections  No, they're not.  &gt;the work to get those benefits will be that much harder  With this self-contradiction, you have proven my point: Unions were once needed, but now it's just abusing for the benefits for union workers only.  Perhaps you got confused by what is happening in Wisconsin.  &gt;Police are pepper spraying old grandmas and people sitting down not doing anything  You are just full of tiresome clichés. If OWS wasn't violent and unruly, this wouldn't happen. Nobody got raped at a Tea Party event. No shitting on cop cars. No Teargas. OWS is responsible for those things that you cite.  The right to peacefully assemble does not mean you can encircle and block the police from doing their lawful job, which is what happened at UC Davis. The old lady got trapped in a protest that got out of hand thanks to OWS idiots.  Stop whining. Stop being violent. Get permits and do the right thing and you might be just as effective in electing change as the Tea Party has been. I doubt it though. OWS children are just plain ignorant.  The 1st Amendment doesn't mean you can build tree forts in the park. That was the final nail in its coffin. "This is a very interesting question.  Unfortunately, in the way you wrote the question the answer is no.  Essentially, you would be asking someone to give you a ~20% return for your cash on something that is almost guaranteed when holding your cash only gets them a <1% return.  Would anyone take the other side of that deal? Interestingly though, you can to some extent hedge surprises in health care costs.  For instance, investing in the healthcare industry as David Rice suggests is a partial hedge.  The prices of those industry stocks already has future expected cost increases included. However, if costs were to jump even higher than expected you would gain some of the added cost you would pay in healthcare back. Not that I recommend this strategy, as you lose diversification, but this is a valid and reasonable reason to slightly overweight american healthcare companies for someone in your situation.   Note that the Wiki article you mention talks about hedging surprises as well.  ""If at planting time the farmer sells a number of wheat futures contracts equivalent to his anticipated crop size, he effectively locks in the price of wheat at that time.""  Thinking that way you may actually be able to buy health insurance now for two or three years in the future essentially locking in expected price increases today.  Probably not the answer you were looking for, but the best analogy for what financial hedging truly does." A medical expense is only a qualified medical expense eligible for an HSA distribution if it is not reimbursed by insurance.  If you know that you will be reimbursed, do not pay for it through your HSA. Think of it this way: you can only be reimbursed for a medical expense once.  Either you get reimbursed by your insurance, or you get reimbursed by your HSA, but not both. If you pay for the expense with your HSA and are later reimbursed, you need to return the money to your HSA through a mistaken distribution repayment.  This is not considered a contribution, but you need to make sure to tell your HSA provider that it is a mistaken distribution repayment and not a contribution, so that it gets accounted for correctly. I'm a business law student, so medical stuff isn't really my specialty. I'll share with you what I know though. First, as to the legality, I'm not aware of anything making it illegal for them to consider their business with you concluded. Absent any contract between you and the doctor, it seems to me that you agreed to pay them in cash. If I was the business, I'd assume our business had been concluded as well. As for any contracts between the insurance company and the doctor's office, as far as I know, that's between them. That wouldn't give you standing to sue the doctor. I'm unfamiliar with a patient submitting insurance claims, but if that's something you are allowed to do with your insurance company and all you need is more information, submit a request for your medical records to the doctor. Under United States law, your medical records are yours. You have a right to receive a copy of them. Keep in mind though that the doctor's office may charge you a small copying fee to cover expenses they incur while making a copy for you. As far as complaining, I would suggest your local Better Business Bureau. Each state generally has a medical board which oversees doctors. You might lodge a complaint with them as well. I hope this helps. Keep in mind that I'm not an attorney. This is not legal advice. This is only what I personally would do if I were in your situation. You can and should consult an attorney who is licensed to practice law in your particular jurisdiction. We frequently get whole insurance vs term insurance questions; and most of the answers will support term insurance.  We get questions regarding getting insurance before there is a need in case there is a problem getting it later. And for most people it doesn't make sense to over-insure early. You have asked from a slightly different position, you have a more solid reason to be concerned about your health. You don't have a need now, and can't estimate what your need will be, or when it will be. Those numbers you quote may seem high, but when you don't know how many kids you may have, or what you will need to protect against, they may turn out to be inadequate when you do need the insurance. You need to sit down with a fee only financial planner. They can lay out your options today, and as your situation changes.  Then as the years go by, have that plan reexamined. The fee only planner will not tell you what company to buy insurance from, or what funds to invest in, but they will help you decide what types of protection and investment you need.