How to Get Free or Low-Cost Health Insurance

Can I Choose Different Coverage?

If your spouse’s employer offers the company health plan to you and your children, you don't have to accept it.

If you can find a better deal on health insurance coverage for you and the kids, you can let your spouse’s employer cover your spouse only. You and the kids can opt for other coverage.

However, before you make this move, you should understand how marketplace/exchange subsidy eligibility works if you have access to health coverage from your spouse's employer.

Prior to 2023, subsidy eligibility in this situation was very limited due to the "family glitch." This meant that if the employer-sponsored plan was considered affordable for just the employee alone, the entire family was ineligible for marketplace subsidies if they were eligible to be added to the employer-sponsored plan—regardless of the cost to add them to that plan.

But as of 2023, the Biden administration fixed that issue, at least somewhat. The new rules ensure that the affordability of the employer-sponsored plan is determined separately for the employee and also for the whole family.

If the employee's coverage is considered affordable but coverage for the whole family is not, the family members are potentially (but not necessarily) eligible for subsidies in the marketplace.