Confused about health insurance when moving back to USA as a family

[ambyuk 8]

So in early January our family of 5 (soon to be 6) is moving back to the USA. I know they now have healthcare.gov - have sort of vaguely checked it out but I'm confused. If anyone's BTDT your advice would be much appreciated.

Because we are all moving back together, he doesn't have a job yet (though he's going to start looking very soon, so he may have a potential one lined up). I imagine the most likely scenario is that we will be there for a short time prior to a job starting, whether he has one lined up or not.

With that in mind, I have no idea what healthcare options his work will offer him - when we lived in the USA before my health insurance through work covered my whole family. But I hear it's common for employers to only cover the employee.

So I don't know what we're supposed to do. Are we supposed to sign up for a plan on healthcare.gov before we arrive? If so, what happens if we sign up to that and then a few weeks later he has a job with full healthcare for all the family - can we just cancel the .gov one? It's all changed so much since we lived there before...

And if we can wait a few weeks to get the insurance, is there some kind of temporary insurance we can get? Our travel insurance based in the UK won't cover us since we are immigrating!

Thanks.

[Alaska2012 462]

sign up once you get here. If he gets a job with health care for the family you just notify healthcare.gov about the changes...

[Alaska2012 462]

Also, depending on the state you move to you might be covered by medicade if your income falls below a certain ammount. At least the ones of you who are us citizens

Edited December 3, 2015 by Alaska2012

[ambyuk 8]

Thanks. They're all US citizens, it's just me who isn't! Being pregnant I was just slightly concerned about the what if's - what if something happens before insurance is sorted?

[milimelo 4,562]

I'd be prepared to work with the local providers to pay cash for the pregnancy care and delivery.