PTC Help!

Okay so I 30M work for a local health department that is very small and my current insurance is wild. We pay $243.75 every 2 weeks from my paycheck for me, my spouse 30F, and our 1.5 yr old. I make $1,585.60 Gross every paycheck. I contribute $158.56 to a retirement pension if that matters. For this amazing cost I have a plan where our deductible is $5,000 individual $10,000 family. After that everything is pretty much free. Needless to say an ER visit pretty much maxes out our deductible and luckily after $3k an HRA covers the remaining $2k towards individual deductibles making it manageable. But that still means a lot of times we are paying $6k a year plus the premiums at best every year. At a household income of around $40k that is scary. Now we get an email saying costs will go up 19.5 percent this year. It's ridiculous. So I started shopping and noticed the PTC is something I should qualify for if my math is right because our insurance is so bad and it would almost completely eliminate my premium costs on the new plan.

I need to know 1.) Do I actually qualify 2.) will the insurance at least be similar in coverage? 3.) how easy is the process of claiming the credit? Do I have to get the insurance and then apply in hopes they say yes? 4.) any general advice navigating this troubling time in my life

submitted by /u/Clever-Sac-of-Flour
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