Choosing the Right Health Plan for Your Family
What type of health plan do you want for your family?
If you are looking for the most affordable monthly premiums, you may want to choose a Bronze plan that offers 60% coverage. If you want middle-of-the-road medical insurance coverage that will give you a nice balance of low cost and average benefits, then you will want to choose a Silver Plan, which offers 70%* coverage. For richer health care benefits, you may select a Gold 80% or Platinum 90% coverage plan.
Families that qualify for Cost Sharing Reduction, usually choose the silver plan.
If your family qualifies for Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR), that means you can get better benefits at the same price if you choose a silver plan. Normally, Silver Plans offer 70% coverage, but if you qualify for CSR, then you may enroll in one of the following Silver Enhanced Plans:
- Silver 73
- Silver 87
- Silver 94
If you qualify for the Silver 87, you can get coverage that is better than the Gold plan at the Silver pricing. If you qualify for the Silver 94, you can get silver family health plans in California that have better benefits and more affordable monthly premiums than the Platinum Plan.
Do you want an HMO or PPO family plan?
PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) plans tend to be more expensive and offer larger networks and a broader range of doctors and hospitals. The HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) plans give you a Primary Care Physician (PCP) who acts a “gatekeeper” and gives you referrals to specialists when needed. HMO’s tend to offer more affordable family health insurance for Californians. Also, they “babysit” their members and remind them to get checkups and tests done. The Kaiser Permanente and SHARP HMO’s have received very high rankings related to quality of care. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California offer the most popular PPO plans for families.
* Note: If you qualify for Cost Sharing Reduction and the Silver Enhanced Benefits, then your Silver Plan will include 73%, 87% or 94% coverage, and you will pay the same price you would have paid for the regular 70% Silver Plan.
Not sure how Obamacare affects your health care plans in California? Learn how the ACA works in California, including benefits, costs and enrollment.
Covered California is the Golden State’s official health exchange marketplace where individuals, families and small businesses can find high-quality, low-cost California government health insurance.
Learn about Obamacare income guidelines in California using our income limits chart, and see if you’re eligible for government assistance.
Learn about the Covered California website. Find easy online enrollment. Set up your account, log in, buy insurance and more on the California health marketplace website.