help me find health insurance
hi everyone! my fiancé (22M) was diagnosed with stage 2A hodgkin’s lymphoma last january. he went through treatment, and at this point had a follow up earlier this year and was told he’s still in remission. we just moved to a new state and now he’s having to navigate finding health insurance that he can afford. he works full time at his job and makes about 18/h which is enough now that we live in PA, and cost of living is cheaper. however, anyone with a brain knows that that’s not too much in terms of being able to afford medical insurance or cancer related bills. when he was first diagnosed, he worked at UPS and was luckily able to use their insurance for all of his chemo. they have really good health insurance so this was truly a blessing. however, we had to move and his disability ran out so he had to quit. he was able to find a cheap plan for his follow up appointments and PET scans, at only $15/month (we lived in FL at this time). I believe this was due to him only being part time at his job. however, we’ve moved yet again (and aren’t moving again anytime soon) and are now in PA. he’s concerned that he’s potentially relapsed and is looking into health insurance plans but since he’s full time now (which didn’t even make a huge difference in his checks) his rates have skyrocketed in comparison to what he had. the lowest plan he saw was $160 a month with a $9,000 deductible. this wouldn’t be awful if he was healthy, however we know we’ll have to cover that $9,000 very quickly with his needed medical expenses and we don’t have the money to do that.
sorry for rambling, I just wanted to give some context. anyway. we really need help figuring out what is best to do in this scenario. would getting married help him get lower rates or would this hinder him and make it cost even more? we live near UMPC and a friend that’s a therapist mentioned they have free emergency health insurance, but we also don’t know much about that. and yes his employer does offer insurance, but he read that it wasn’t great so he initially denied it and stayed with his $15/month plan. however now he’s trying to look into it more, and he wouldn’t be able to enroll and use it for 3/4 months from now, which isn’t great either. we just really need help because we have no familial support. his toxic parents didn’t have any health insurance for a bit when he was 19/20 and once they got it again they were incredibly lazy and refused to put him on it since he was healthy. after he got diagnosed at 21 his father kept claiming his insurance company “wouldn’t let him put him on it due to his cancer” and he’s since had a falling out with them so that isn’t even an option.
any help, suggestions, or resources would be amazing. thank you.
