Increasing Insurance Coverage to Offset Additional Income

[SilverKnight]

My wife and I (chapter 13) have health insurance as part of our schedule J. The insurance is high deductible and of marginal quality, but all that we could afford prior to filing.

In a few months, my wife will be out of school and will (hopefully) be working. We'll have extra income to report as well as additional expenses to offset (gas and other directly work-related costs).

Question: Can we increase our health insurance coverage to offset some of this additional income? I'm sure that our current policy will have a rate increase at some point and that would be allowed, but can I purchase better coverage to legally offset additional income?

[justbroke]

I would not see any problem if you're going from a catastrophic or high deductible policy to one more fitting (with little or no deductible). It's better to not have that looming high deductible while you are ripe for Chapter 13. You haven't filed yet, have you?

[SilverKnight]

Yes, I filed over a year ago, and was confirmed on almost our 1 year anniversary of filing.

[justbroke]

This should be perfectly fine and has a real valid explanation. I believe that high deductibles, especially for routine office visits, actually prevent people from going to the doctor as often. Preventative care should be as important as having general catastrophic (high deductible) insurance in all cases.