Short-term marketplace health insurance between jobs from healthcare.gov?

Hello,

I’m in Illinois, and I haven’t seen a doctor for 10 years and am way behind on all kinds of checkups, vaccines, and screenings. I had good insurance before the pandemic but I took it for granted, worked my ass off, and just never used it. Then lost my job. I have been a completely uninsured student for the last two years while going back to school and I have recently made my return into the workforce full time… in retail…. at 15 dollars an hour. Basically giving me nothing but a job.

My company offered a single health plan, a blue cross blue shield health plan that cost 200 dollars a pay period. I thought that it was kinda expensive but I went and signed up, health insurance after a pandemic we just went through seems like a no-brainer, however it won’t kick in until after 90 days with the company.

Nobody told me until after I made my elections using my new hired qualifying event that we were paid weekly instead of the bi-weekly that I am used too. A premium of 400 dollars a month suddenly turned into 800 a month, that’s 25% of my gross pay! Rent is the rest! No freaking way can I afford that, but I already signed up? Do I have to wait for open enrollment to leave or can I cancel my plan?

I make too much to qualify for state medicaid? Should I just stay uninsured and pay out of pocket? How do you develop a good relationship with a doctor or healthcare system in a situation where you have to question the cost and necessity of absolutely every one of their tests? Is there somewhere else I can go or something else I should do?

I’m burned out to be honest. This is so depressing.