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Final Verdict
The best health insurance plan for you is going to depend on the details of your personal situation. However, these four are worth considering if you’re a young adult. A good place to start your search is with value-packed Aetna, especially if you qualify for tax credits, or tech-savvy Oscar. However, if affordability is your top priority, Molina is worth checking out for its low-deductible bronze plans. If you don’t qualify for premium tax credits and don’t expect to use your plan much, catastrophic coverage from Blue Shield Blue Cross could be a good option.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Is Health Insurance?
The cost of health insurance varies based on factors such as the plan you choose and whether you qualify for the premium tax credit. Insurers are only allowed to consider five factors to determine your costs: age, location, tobacco use, individual vs. family enrollment, and plan category. For example, when looking at insurance costs for 25-year-olds, the premiums on bronze plans averaged about $294 and deductibles averaged $8,133. As you browse plans, look at all of the costs you’ll incur, including a plan’s premiums, deductibles, copays, and coinsurance.
What Is a Health Insurance Copayment?
A copayment is an amount that an insurer requires you to pay for a healthcare service—commonly for prescription drugs and doctor visits. In some cases, you may be able to pay the copay for services before your deductible is met. For example, a plan may have a $2,000 deductible but a $50 copay on doctor visits and a $15 copay on prescription drugs. The copays help to make certain services more affordable before the deductible is satisfied.
What Is a Deductible in Health Insurance?
A health insurance deductible is the amount you must pay per year for healthcare services before your coinsurance kicks in and begins to cover a percentage of your costs. Insurance policies define costs that count toward your deductible and those that don’t. For example, lab tests, MRIs, and hospital bills typically count towards your deductible while premiums don’t. Copays may or may not count. So if your deductible is $2,000 and your coinsurance is 30%, you’d have to pay $2,000 in qualifying healthcare expenses before your insurance would start covering 70% of your costs.
What Is a Catastrophic Plan?
A catastrophic health insurance plan is a low-premium, high-deductible health insurance plan for people who are under 30 years old, or who qualify for a hardship or affordability exemption. It includes the ten essential health benefits and no-cost preventive services required by all plans in the Marketplace. Additionally, it covers at least three primary care visits per year before you’ve paid your deductible. Premium tax credits don’t apply to catastrophic coverage plans, so they typically won’t offer the best value unless you don’t qualify for a tax credit on a bronze or silver plan.
Methodology
To determine the best health insurance companies for young adults, we considered criteria in the following categories.
- Customer satisfaction: We used NCQA ratings, primarily, and healthcare.gov ratings, secondarily, to measure this criteria.
- State availability: This measure indicates how widely available plans are across the U.S.
- Plan features: For each company, we collected and analyzed whether it offered the following:
- Types of plans: HMO, PPO, EPO, POS, and other plan types
- Plan benefits: Programs to help manage asthma, heart disease, depression, diabetes, pain, high cholesterol and blood pressure, pregnancy, low back pain, and weight loss
- Dental coverage: Coverage for child dental, adult dental, both, or neither
- Metal levels: Bronze, silver, gold, and platinum plans, and catastrophic coverage
- Cost to value: We compared physician copays, specialist copays, monthly premiums, and deductibles for bronze and silver plans across different age groups across two ZIP codes, representing the highest enrollment in ACA plans by state.
- Premium tax credit reduction: We researched and compared the percentage of plan premiums eligible for reduction by the premium tax credit.