Who we help
Self-employed
The subsidy follows your income estimate, so the estimate is the job. Here is how to get it close.
How do I cover myself when my income is different every quarter?
For a contractor or a one-person business, health cover is a business expense you set once a year against a number you cannot know yet. The premium tax credit is calculated from your estimated modified adjusted gross income for the coming year. Estimate low, and you take more credit than you were entitled to and repay part of it at filing. Estimate high, and you pay more each month and get it back as a refund.
For self-employed people the input is net income after business expenses, not gross receipts. That surprises people who invoice a lot and keep little. It also means a large equipment purchase or a slow quarter genuinely changes the number, and you are allowed to tell the Marketplace when it does.
The second question is structure. A Bronze plan plus a funded health savings account is a real strategy for someone with reserves and low usage. A Silver plan with cost-sharing reductions is usually better at lower incomes, because the reductions only exist on Silver. We model both against a light year and a heavy year rather than arguing from principle.
The order to do this in
- Start from last year's returnLine by line, then adjust for what you already know about this year: a client gained, a contract ended, a planned purchase.
- Add the rest of the householdMAGI is the whole tax household, so a spouse's W-2 income counts. So does an affordable employer offer they may have, which can disqualify credits.
- Test Silver against Bronze and GoldWith subsidy applied, under a light year and a heavy year. If cost-sharing reductions apply, Silver frequently wins both.
- Decide on an HSAOnly available with an HSA-qualified high-deductible plan. Worth it if you can actually fund it; otherwise it is just a large deductible.
- Diarise a July checkCompare actual income to estimate. If it has moved, update the Marketplace then rather than discovering it in April.
What we check before naming a plan
- Is your income estimate net of business expenses?
- Does anyone in your tax household have an offer of affordable employer coverage?
- Do you have three months of expenses in reserve, or would a deductible hurt?
- Will you actually fund an HSA, or does it just sound good?
- Do your doctors take the specific plan, not just the carrier?
- Would a hospital stay stop your income as well as cost you a deductible?
Where this goes wrong
Using gross receipts as the income estimate
It inflates MAGI, shrinks the credit, and means you overpay premium all year for no reason.
Never updating the estimate
The Marketplace expects estimates to change. Updating mid-year adjusts the credit forward instead of creating a repayment.
Buying a health share plan
Sharing ministries are not insurance, are not regulated as insurance, and have no obligation to pay a claim. We do not place them.
Ignoring income protection
If a hospital stay stops your invoicing, the deductible is the smaller problem. That is what supplemental cash benefits are for.
The coverage lines that usually apply
Self-employed health cover
For 1099 earners and one-person businesses, where income moves and the subsidy moves with it.
Compare coverage
ACA Marketplace plans
Individual and family plans on the federal Marketplace, with subsidy eligibility checked properly.
Compare coverage
Critical illness and supplemental
Policies that pay cash directly to you when a diagnosis or a hospital stay also stops your income.
Compare coverage
Life insurance
Term, permanent and final-expense cover, sized against an actual obligation rather than a rule of thumb.
Compare coverage
Questions at this stage
Give your best good-faith estimate and commit to updating it. A mid-year update is a routine transaction, not an admission of error.
Self-employed people can often deduct health insurance premiums subject to conditions. Raise it with your tax preparer; we will make sure you know to ask.
Usually, because it can exclude pre-existing conditions and does not have to cover essential health benefits. For most people that is a bad trade, and we will explain exactly what is missing.
No. Our compensation comes from the carrier. The Marketplace premium is identical whether you enrol through us or by yourself.
Call and ask us anything. Nothing is sold on the phone.
Twenty minutes with someone who will ask for your doctor list before naming a plan. If the right answer is the plan you already have, that is what you will hear.
(727) 555-0241Mon - Thu 8:30 am - 5:30 pm · Friday 8:30 am - 3:00 pm · TTY 711 · Se habla español
No cost to you, ever. We are compensated by carriers, not by the people we advise.