Simple advice

[8-ball]

Hey guys I need a little advice on travel nursing, I have been a nurse for almost 5 years, 1.5 year med-surg, 2 years ICU and a little over a year in Interventional Radiology doing conscience sedation. I am working on my BSN and will be done in summer 2016, I had planned to go into CRNA school after that but after watching the forums there seems to be a problem. I dont want to be in 250K debt and not be able to find a job. So I am thinking travel may be the way for me. For me its not about the money as much as the experience and ability to travel. So here is what I have learned and hope to utilize based on reading the forums from everyones advice.

1) Have multiple agancies working for you

2) get your own insurance and maybe even housing

3) Choose assignments that are the right fit for you not just based on pay.

So here is my plan I live in Nashville TN, and my wife is a school teacher with commitments through 2016-1017 school year. So I am thinking of taking local assignments first in TN and KY (I am near the border) during that time applying for my other licences especially CA since they take so long. Once my wife finishes her school year we will travel together and she will semi retire, basically being my agent so to speak setting up contracts and dealing with agencies, housing, etc. We will be bringing are 2 small dogs, no children. Based on our combined income I will need to make $42 hour once she quits her job, prior to that we are working to pay off all debt such as car loans and credit cards, which I think I can do in that year.

So now its your turn, what I am asking is...are there any flaws in my plan? Should my wife find part time work? Does it matter that I have been out of the ICU for over a year and almost 2 years by the time I start traveling?

Thanks

[NedRN]

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately if something happens), insurance is required of everyone by the ACA. You can get high deductible insurance (which I believe comes to your financial advantage anyway over premium plans) for less. But much will depend on whether TN has their own exchange or not. You can certainly get private insurance directly from insurance companies, but the little bit of info I have about that is that it is no less than the same insurance policy from the same insurance company that is on the exchange.

Before the ACA, there were basically two types of health insurance, group, and private. Most people got group through their employer, but regardless, you had to be in a group. That insurance was guaranteed to all members of the class and as a result of insuring a cross section of the healthy and the non-healthy or high risk, was very expensive. Private insurance was only available to the relatively healthy, came with no guarantees of coverage with pre-existing conditions (you could be disqualified years later if a pre-existing condition was found - even one you didn't know about). Cherry picking healthy people meant you could get decent insurance privately for often less than half of what group cost employers.

So what I happen to have is pre-ACA private insurance through Anthem (BCBS). Some of the requirements of the ACA apply to all insurance, such as no lifetime limits, but it falls short in some other areas like pregnancy that don't matter for me. It has been sort of grandfathered (Obama saying if you liked your insurance you could keep it was incorrect but some changes were made to allow it) but since the group (even private insurance is based on a pool of enrollees) has diminished or the healthy have gone on to greener pastures, it has gone up 50% in the last three years. Still cheaper than buying on the federal exchange for me (I make too much to be eligible for subsidies, and my home state does not have their own exhange) and as I will shortly be eligible for Medicare, I'm pretty much home free.