ACA AKA Obamacare cost estimator

[Arab Nights (imported)]

I have looked at and compared a couple of Affordable Care Act estimators. The health care estimator that I like the best is:

http://www.valuepenguin.com/ppaca/exchanges

It gives you a whole list of individual plans with costs that seem pretty close along with a comment section.

Some cautionary notes. I have talked with people who have very reasonable monthly rates and think they have affordable health care. When I talk to them, they only know the monthly rate and do not even know what words like 'coinsurance' and 'out of pocket maximum' mean. It takes only a few minutes on the internet to learn what those mean and they are very significant in understanding what coverage you really have. If you live in a rural area, you also need to be very, very careful that a particular plan really works in your area. For example, there is one company that usually shows up with the lowest cost plans, but when you read the comments of ValuePenguin and talk with people and medical professionals, you would not sign up with them (in the county where I live).

I am passing this along as a factual post which hopefully helps people and not as a 'my opinion of ACA' post. Hope it helps a few people. Remember you have until March 31 to sign up this year. If you do not sign up, you can do a quick internet scan for the penalty, which is the greater of two amounts calculated from either the number of people in the family or a percentage of their adjusted income and will increase for the first couple of years.

Enjoy.