Open enrollment for Affordable Care Act compliant health insurance plan (commonly known as Obamacare) is right around the corner, running from November 1, 2016 to January 31, 2017. If you wonder whether switching your child over to an ACA-compliant health plan may lower the overall cost of your health insurance and/or help your child get the services he or she needs, now is the time to begin looking into the options.

To research how ACA plans work, visit https://www.healthinsurance.org/.  Through the site, you can even obtain free health insurance quotes: https://www.healthinsurance.org/quotes/ or receive free help from licensed agents by calling 1-844-608-2739.

CFK Parent Jen Wish switched her son to an Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliant health insurance plan in January 2015.  Here is a Q&A about her experience:
 
Q:  Why did you switch plans?
We switched my son to an individual ACA plan because we were frustrated that my employer plan didn't cover most of the services he needs.  My Aetna employer plan, which is great for the rest of my family's coverage, didn't cover speech therapy, occupational therapy (OT) or Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). For my employer plan we pay approx $300/month and have a very low deductible, but I was also paying about $250 extra per month out of pocket just for speech visits one time per week. This led me to look into other plans because my son needed more services and I couldn't afford to pay for speech, OT and ABA all out of pocket. 
 
Q: How did you find a plan?
I did a lot of research on my own including looking on Healthcare.gov. I also worked with a broker who answered my many questions about coverage options.
 
Q: How did the ACA insurance plan compare in cost to your employer covered health insurance?
On the ACA individual plan we pay $185/month (this includes medical and dental) and there is a $4000 deductible ($4000 sounds like a high deductible, but we were already paying $3000 out of pocket per year just for speech once per week).  I feel like this is a great deal considering in 2015, the first year we switched to the ACA plan, we racked up approximately $40,000 in claims and only had to pay the premium plus deductible.
 
The ACA plan he is currently on covers 40 speech visits (it covers 20 regular speech visits and an additional 20 "autism visits" because of his diagnosis), 40 OT/PT visits and 20 hours per week of ABA therapy. So he went from only having speech (at $55/week out of pocket) to having speech, OT and ABA.  We started ABA in home in the spring/summer of 2015 about 7-10 hours per week, and now our ABA Therapist goes to school with him in the afternoons to run his behavior plan, support his teachers and to work on socialization with his classmates.
 
The plan we chose is also a Health Savings Account Plan (HSA).  We didn't actually realize what this meant at first.  By the time I figured it out in late February of this year, we had already reached our deductible.  The Health Savings Account is definitely something we will definitely take advantage of for 2017.
 
Q: What would you tell others who may be looking to switch but are hesitant?
Do your research and talk to a broker now!  For us, it really was the best decision we could have made. I attribute much of the growth we've seen in our son over the past year and a half to the amount of therapy and support we've been able to provide for him in addition to what the school provides. Over the past year, I've chatted with a bunch of CFK families and families from other organizations I'm involved in who are looking to do the same thing. I remember how nervous I was when I first took him off my employer coverage and signed him up for an individual plan. I felt like somehow it wouldn't work out or it wouldn't cover what they said it would, but thankfully I was wrong!