5 Top tips on buying health insurance

1. I'm self-employed for the last 2 years, and I found my health insurance using the US government website at healthcare.gov. It gives a nice user interface and allows quick comparison of dozens if not hundreds of options. I ended up paying about $200/month for my individual coverage.

2. In October 2013 the Federal exchanges will be up for enrollment/quoting for 1/1/2014 effective dates. Depending on your income, you may qualify for a subsidy and obtain insurance at a reduced cost with all ACA mandates (no pre-ex, no lifetime max, etc.) You may qualify for discounts to help pay for premiums if your income is from $15,302 to $46,021 for an individual and $31,155 to $93,700 for a family of four.

3. Was coming here to suggest ehealthinsurance.com. Buying your own health insurance is just as easy as buying anything else online, like auto insurance.

I'm young and healthy, with no need to go to the doctor unless I get hit by a bus or something. So, I have a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) that costs me about $100 / mo. If I do get hit by a bus, it'll cost me about 7k max. I've got that in an emergency fund, so I'm covered. I'd rather save money on premiums instead of having a low deductible for unlikely events.
I always wonders what the big deal was about these "health exchanges" they put into the Obamacare law... why does it take an act of congress to create an online shopping website?

I always wonders what the big deal was about these "health exchanges" they put into the Obamacare law... why does it take an act of congress to create an online shopping website?
Cause evil capitalism and stuff man.

To be fair, healthcare is arguably an inefficient market. We want to believe regular capitalistic forces will take over, but people are frequently in a position where they are unable to make choices.
If you have to choose between a specialized surgery and death, what do you choose?
If you have to be taken to a hospital and are unconscious, but don't have insurance to cover it and don't get to choose what ambulance service takes you in and compare what they charge you, how can you have a choice in that?
I'm pretty much a definitive capitalist, but I have a hard time seeing healthcare as a regular market. Europe/Canada actually have very good models.

Much like real estate, healthcare is a market that most people deal with infrequently. Perhaps more often than car shopping, but generally not as much as, say, grocery shopping or clothes shopping. With traditional retailers, if you don't like something, you can return it, exchange it, boycott the store, etc.
Also, almost by definition, you're not in the best state of mind when 'shopping' for health care - you have a 'dis'-ease about you, and you're not always able to make the most rational decisions, nor do you always have time to 'shop around'.

Lastly, because health insurance services are so tied to employers, people rarely even consider a choice in their insurance provider - the insurance companies cater to large employers' needs, not the needs of individuals (broadly speaking).
If you don't like the quality of the emergency surgery you just received, what are you going to do about it? Give them a bad review on yelp?

4. Also in MA, I'm a self employed 27 year old healthy male, paying $230 a month. I just checked the site and the cheapest now for me is minimum $310/mo.
Health insurance drives me nuts. It doesn't ask anything about my health, family health history or how much I make annually, shouldn't these things matter!?
edit: Just check ehealthinsurance, found ONE cheaper at $220 and it has the lowest customer rating of the bunch. Oh boy.

Health insurance drives me nuts. It doesn't ask anything about my health, family health history or how much I make annually, shouldn't these things matter!?
If it were insurance it would. But it's basically just a privatized form of socialized cost-spreading. Basically we're living with the worst of both worlds: "private insurance" that's heavily controlled by the government to favor the providers, and a tax code that heavily favors getting overly expensive insurance through an employer (seriously, I'm not self employed but it doesn't make sense that insurance through my employer is tax deductible but if I get a policy that suits me better (saving everyone involved money) it isn't. We should be getting as many people as possible on high-deductible plans with a Health Savings Account and actually letting a market develop, but neither Democrats or Republicans are interested in that so it'll never happen.

110% agreed. The HSA stuff was one of the few good things I think Bush 2 pushed through (if memory serves correctly), and it's a shame there wasn't more marketing pushed behind it to change our culture of "employers take care of me".
It's an odd juxtaposition for conservatives/Republicans - typically conservative "I take care of myself and pull my family up by my bootstraps" types want to focus on self-reliance, but then you've got this continued fixation on employer-provided perks being the primary way health insurance is delivered. You'd think they'd be the ones howling the most loudly for real market-oriented reforms that favor the individual decision-making they claim to support. Maybe it's just individual business-owners they care about?

Yeah, it was realizing that which finally helped me transition away from a conservative Republican upbringing: seeing that the rhetoric and the practice just didn't jive. Now I'm much more jaded and don't tend to make much in terms of prescriptive suggestions, but I do tend to poke holes in most mainstream talking points. For financial stuff, it all seems pretty clear that no-one currently in power cares about me or my friends: they care about themselves and their friends (maybe that's being a little too generic, but I can't think of anyone in US politics that I really, fully trust to be looking out for me. Never was a Ron Paul groupie myself).
But for insurance it just makes sense: if you make it more or less illegal for medical care to have prices, no one knows how much to consume. That means that eventually you have to bring someone who does know the cost in to control who gets what and when. Some people are happy with that, but my point has always been that why is that justified when we're seeing actual success with reintroducing market pricing and letting people decide for themselves. Why take that away from people when it seems pretty clear that it works? You want to keep providing for people who can't afford it? Use tax credits and subsidized HSAs or something, but don't screw the rest of us over in their name (since the real goal is political power and favor, as mentioned above). Eh, I just hope I don't end up getting screwed for having taken things into my own hands and planning for retirement. I don't see that happening, but if I end up getting my retirement savings confiscated in any substantial way because it's "not fair" then I might snap and start hurting people.

Oh yeah, I'd suggested that to people - use tax law to encourage private medical insurance.
At some point, congress will start taxing the value of benefits like health insurance - it might not be 100% at first, but they'll do it. Taxes are revenue, of course, but also social engineering tools, and there's a chance they could direct us socially to a new way of thinking.
Let people deduct 200% of the cost of individual medical insurance policies. Then the next year, have it be 180%. Then 160% after that. And so on, down to 100%. Or start at 100% and go to 0%. Phase it out over 5-10 years, so they don't feel like they're giving away a revenue base forever, but 5-10 years would be enough to encourage a lot of people to get private policies over employer ones (especially if you started taxing the value of employer-provided policies at the same time).
As more people had private policies (ideally with HSAs), the market would naturally shift to actually giving a toss about individuals and their health needs, because they'd have more direct control over the spending of the dollars.

I've been baffled by 'flex plan' offerings from insurance companies via employer plans. Basically, put a few hundred aside 'tax free' every year, but you better spend it by date X, or you lose it. "Use it or lose it!" It encourages wasteful spending - I know many medical places around here will advertise "use your flex plan money before you lose it!", and I know people are going in and getting extra pairs of glasses or whatever, just to not 'lose' that money. HSAs make so much more sense - use it if you need it, but save if you don't, so you'll have a real cushion for emergencies - self-insure yourself vs caring about "co pays" and such. Ugh.
We seem to have every incentive set up to encourage wrong/bad/dumb behaviour in this country, but many large companies benefit from it. I'd much prefer a European system, but in the absence of that, more actual direct market participation by individuals, vs employer groups, would have a beneficial impact.

"then I might snap and start hurting people."
But you'll also be helping them by paying more taxes, so it'll balance out.

5. Don't feel bad, we pay $800/month for 3 people. $450 for me and my daughter and $350 for my husband. He has pre-existing conditions that make him hard/expensive to insure. I tried adding him to my policy a few years ago and they told me it would be an extra $1000/month for him. He was able to get on his parents plan when they passed the ACA and now we are using COBRA until that runs out.

I thought Obamacare did away denying pre-existing conditions?

It did, but it wasn't instantaneous. I think the companies havae until 2014 to fully implement.

New York is just as bad. I've lived in 5 states, and my $200/month insurance carried through all of them until I moved to upstate NY. I got a letter saying they couldn't cover me here and were dropping me. Blue Cross has a stranglehold on NY, and almost acceptable insurance will run over $1200/month.

Although I understand you expect some economy of scale, the comparisons I'm seeing in the rest of the thread are $200/month/person. This seems competitive with those.

I'd try to find a plan that makes you eligible to use a health savings account. Some people use this like a double tax advantaged IRA - the money doesn't get taxed on the way in or on the way out. You can hold investments in there if you have the right provider.
The withdrawals must be spent on medical expenses to avoid taxation and a 20% penalty until you hit age 65. After that you just pay income tax on it like it was a Traditional IRA (or no tax if it goes towards medical expenses).

Sorry if that wasn't clear.
The money goes in pretax. It's a wrapper account like an IRA - you pick a provider and can invest the funds if you like, although most people probably choose to use a savings account. Your investments will grow tax-deferred inside the account.
If you spend it on health care expenses at any time, you don't pay any tax when you take it out.
If you spend it on normal expenses after 65, you will pay income taxes making it similar to a Traditional IRA.
If you spend it on normal expenses before 65 you will pay income taxes plus a 20% penalty.
The main benefit would be that it's another $5000 or so that you invest for retirement like a Traditional IRA but can be accessed at any time if you have a medical emergency.

max the has every year and pay for your medical stuff out of pocked keeping the receipts. 10-20-30 years down the line after the money has grown you can withdraw the amount you paid in medical expenses over the past years (since you opened the account) and use it how you see fit.

Opt out of the government monopolized healthcare system. Search your area for private practices that offer their own insurance plan. I pay $399/yr for unlimited access to my doctor and $1099 for catastrophic insurance w/ $1,000 deductible.
Instead of calling 911, they compete with the government monopolized ambulances and instead send their own. They respond faster and with better care.

Sadly, plans like this are few and far between. I'm hoping that the trend of offices not accepting insurance and people using HSAs picks up steam, but I'm not sure how feasible this will be since health law seems hell-bent on getting as many people into one-size-fits-all employer insurance policies as possible. Which will obviously damage the quality and affordability of insurance and healthcare by further distorting the market, and such failings will then be blamed on the market that hasn't existed for decades, and both Democrats and Republicans will spout a lot of rhetoric and propose ways to make the system even less stable. Sigh.

This is a thing? What do you call it? How do you find it?

I would apply for coverage for as many insurance companies as you can and choose the one with the best coverage for the least amount of money. Here is a list of the top 25 health insurance companies in the country.
With 3 dependents, I would at least try to find a plan with a low office visit co-pay and good prescription coverage. After that, you can get a basic major medical plan until the exchanges open in October and start in January.
For my husband and me in MS, it was a little less than $220/month for individual 80/20 coverage and $35 office visit co-pay and prescription coverage. Our drug deductibles were $10-$50 depending on the level of the drug. Generics were always $10.
I would not recommend waiting until the exchange is up in January. A lot can happen in 6 months.