Health Insurance Quiz: Which Insurance Plan is Best for Me?

At HSA for America, our ongoing mission is to simplify the process of comparing, choosing, and enrolling in a health insurance plan. There’s no shame in it: We all struggle with the question of how to pick the best health insurance plan. But if you’ve found your way to this blog, then you’re off to a pretty good start. Check our our health insurance quiz below.

Take the Quiz: Which Health Insurance Plan is Best for Me

1.) Does Your Employer Offer a Healthcare Option?

If you said YES: In most cases, employer-sponsored healthcare is more affordable than buying coverage on your own. However, there’s no requirement that you use your company’s health insurance if you find a plan you like better.

If you said NO: Going without health insurance is a significant financial risk. According to Forbes, that risk is as much as $115,000 per year in out of pocket costs. Fortunately, as of 2021, health insurance subsidies have been expanded for almost every income level, making individually-purchased plans more affordable.  

2.) Do You Have Ongoing Prescription Needs?

If you said YES: You need to familiarize yourself with the plan’s formulary before you make a decision. While all marketplace plans are required to cover certain preventive care medications at no-cost, the full list of covered medications will vary by plan.

If you said NO: If you don’t have prescription needs, a high-deductible plan paired with a Health Savings Account could be the better financial move.

3.) Do You Already Have a Doctor, Provider, or Hospital You Want to Keep?

If you said YES, Then health sharing may be right for you. Unlike traditional health insurance HMOs and PPOs, health sharing plans typically don’t have narrow provider networks. Though some do negotiate deeper discounts with some providers, you typically are notn’t limited to staying within your network.

And unlike HMOs, health sharing plans usually don’t require you to get a referral from a primary care doctor before you’re allowed to see a specialist.

If you do choose a traditional health insurance HMO or PPO plan, Make sure that the doctor or provider you want to work with is included in your plan’s network. With HMO plans, there’s no coverage for services you get out-of-network.

PPO plans are more flexible with out-of-network coverage, but it is almost always more affordable to stay in-network anyway.

Healthsharing works best if you don’t have serious pre-existing conditions. That’s because unlike traditional health insurance plans, health sharing organizations can and do impose a waiting period on pre-existing conditions.

If you said NO: Even if you don’t currently have a doctor, researching the plan’s provider network can save you a lot of hassle down the line. Consider things like how far the hospital or doctor is from your house, or whether you spend time in multiple states.

 4.) Do You Have the Money to Cover a High Deductible?

If you said YES: If you’re confident that you can pay the plan’s deductible, then choosing a high-deductible plan (HDHP) is a good way to cut down on monthly payments. Read our HSA Strategy: How to Maximize the Value of Your Health Savings Account [2025 Guide] to find out more.

If you said NO: For many people, paying more per-month in exchange for a much lower deductible is well worth it.

5.) Do You Feel Like You’ve Been Left Behind by Obamacare?

If you said YES: You could be a good match for Healthcare Cost Sharing. This is a legal and low-cost workaround to traditional health insurance plans. They’re a particularly good match for people who are paying for expensive health insurance that they barely ever use.

If you said NO: You can enroll in a health insurance plan during 2025 Health Insurance Open Enrollment, which begins every year on November 1st. With expanded subsidies that started in 2021, a lot of people should be seeing lower premiums, as well as reduced copays and deductibles.

6.) Are you inside of an open enrollment period?

If you said YES: Then you may sign up for a traditional health insurance plan, such as an Affordable Care Act plan available in your state’s Marketplace. These are the only individual and family health care plans that qualify for a subsidy under the Affordable Care Act.

Note: The general open enrollment for Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) plans starts November 1st, and goes through January 15th. If you want coverage to be effective as of January 1st, you must enroll by December 15th, however.

This is normally the only time during the year when all Americans have the right to enroll in a health insurance plan, regardless of pre-existing conditions or medical history.

If you miss open enrollment, however, you may qualify to enroll outside of open enrollment if you have a qualifying life event that entitles you to a special enrollment period.

Examples of qualifying life events include the cancellation of your current health care plan, moving to a new state, the loss of a spouse, the birth or adoption of a child, etc.

If you qualify for a subsidy, you must enroll in an Affordable Care Act plan in order to use the subsidy. Health sharing plans don’t qualify for a subsidy.

However, if you don’t qualify for an ACA subsidy, then health sharing may be a great choice, since health sharing plans are available at just a fraction of the cost of an ACA marketplace plan without a subsidy. 

If you said NO, and you don’t qualify for a special enrollment period described above, then you don’t have the ability toign up for an ACA-qualified plan right now..

But you can still enroll in a health sharing plan. Health sharing plans don’t have open enrollment periods. You can enroll in them at any time throughout the year.

The primary advantage to health sharing is that it costs just a fraction of what an unsubsidized Obamacare plan typically costs. 

The primary disadvantage is that health sharing plans don’t qualify for an Obamacare subsidy. 

They also may impose a waiting period on pre-existing conditions. But you may still enroll and get some financial protection for everything else that’s not a pre-existing condition.

Which is usually far preferable than going without a health plan altogether until next year!

That’s where health sharing can be a terrific option: It’s an affordable way to get meaningful protection for yourself and your family against many potentially catastrophic health care expenses, even outside of open enrollment for Affordable Care Act plans!

You can sign up now. Then re-assess your situation in November, when the next ACA open enrollment period commences. 

7.) Is your income too high to qualify for Obamacare subsidies?

If you said YES,  then you should consider a health sharing plan. Especially if you don’t have preexisting conditions.

Health sharing plans typically provide significant protection against unexpected and potentially catastrophic health care costs – all at a fraction of the unsubsidized cost of an Affordable Care Act policy.

So if you don’t qualify for a subsidy, or only get a small one because you earned too much money last year, then a health sharing plan may be the way to go: Health sharing may save thousands of dollars per year for a typical family of four.

Note: If you or a member of your family has pre-existing medical conditions, that may affect your decision. That’s because unlike ACA-qualified traditional health insurance plans, health sharing plans may impose a waiting period on pre-existing conditions.

That is, bills related to the treatment of pre-existing conditions may not be shareable for some months or years after you sign up for the health share plan.

So if there are pre-existing conditions, you may want to stick with a traditional health insurance plan, even though it may cost you more in deductibles and premiums – particularly if you don’t qualify for a large subsidy.

If you said NO, then sticking with a traditional Affordable Care Act policy may be best. Health sharing plans are much cheaper than the unsubsidized cost of health insurance. But for lower- and moderate-income households, the presence of an ACA subsidy can change that equation.

Health sharing plans do not qualify for an Affordable Care Act subsidy. And so may cost more out of pocket than an ACA marketplace plan with a subsidy.

Every family’s situation is different, though. Contact one of our Personal Benefit Managers for a free consultation and analysis.