Income is too Low, So I Pay More (Ohio)

(Age: 27, Income Estimate for December: $1049.81) If anyone can help me understand this, I'd greatly appreciate it: My workplace won't give me enough hours to qualify for health insurance through them (that's a whole other can of worms), so I'm currently looking for new jobs; but in the meantime, I've been on federal health insurance in my state about 2.5 years. The plan isn't great, but it does have a $0 deductible, and the last two years I've qualified for some state "tax credit", making my premium a little more manageable (about $180 a month, which is about 1/2 of one paycheck for me.) However, my wonderful manager has cut my hours, to the point that I only get about 15 hours per week, and obviously my income has gone down because of that. I reapplied for my insurance plan, keeping all the same information except for the lowered income. My application was automatically sent to the Medicaid office for review, which I'm a little nervous about being on Medicaid, but in the meantime I tried to just get my original plan. Apparently I no longer qualify for the "tax credit" because my income is too low, so now my premium will go up to $350 a month, which in the off season will be all of my paycheck or more than what I make in an entire month. I'm lucky that I live with my family in the meantime, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Is taking away the tax credit to encourage my using Medicaid? That application hasn't even begun processing yet, and probably won't clear before the new year. Should I outright cancel my current insurance since I won't be able to pay the new premium by December 31? I have no clue what to do.

See also  Anyone know how to reach a higher tier of support with UHC?

submitted by /u/Warcats-cat
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