<prompt> Human: Hey everyone, first time poster on PF. I apologize for my dim-wittedness, but I am clueless here and want to make sure I do this correctly. I also apologize if I am breaking any posting rules, but Im not sure where to go for this sort of advice. Ill be turning 26 and I will be dropped from my parents health insurance. A dock on my parents is that they never taught me anything about personal finance, insurance, or anything of that sort, so I am completely clueless as to what to do. I hardly know how insurance works for that matter. My parents are conservative and anti-Obama, so they tell me I have to look into it, but when I ask for help theyre response is something like oh, I dont understand that bleeding liberal bullshit.I started searching for Obamacare my parents said its what I have to sign up for, and I got a lot of results different healthcare dot ... sites saying I can sign up here. Do they all go to the same thing? It also seems there are multiple insurance plan options. What is the actual site I should be going to to sign up?What do I need to know or need to research first?I dont have a very steady income if that helps. I make about 100 in an 8 hour work day, but its not necessarily five days a week. I average between 300-500 a week. I would say my income for this year will be greater than 10,000, but less than 20,000. Its a welding job, and I dont have work if there simply isnt any to be done. I am also looking to go to grad school in the fall, but Im not 100 sure if I will be.  <response>: Insurance Executive here:Start with Depending on which state you live in, youll either enroll on that website directly or get redirected to your local state exchange.ACA is the acronym for Affordable Care Act, and its the proper name for Obamacare.How do you pick a plan.All ACA plans cover the same 10 basic features, including Emergency care, outpatient care, prescription drugs, mental care, pediatric care, etc.How plans differ is two key ways.1. Network size. What this means is what doctors are in network? Some networks are very broad, include most or all hospitals in the state, and these tend to be more expensive. Others are very narrow, target specific communities, regions, or hospitals. These tend to be cheaper.2. HMO or PPO. HMOs are becoming less common, but they tend to be less expensive. Many people dislike that HMOs can require pre-approval before seeing a specialist. PPOs generally do not require pre-approvals, although they actually often do in certain situations. I prefer PPOs.Once you pick a plan, you need to pick a metallic. Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. These refer to different versions of the same plan, and the only differences among metallic are the amounts of money you need to pay for Deductible, Coinsurance, and Out-Of-Pocket levels. Bronze plans are the cheapest and have higher out of pocket costs, Platinum are the most expensiveand have lower out of pocket costs. By far, the most popular metallic is Silver, and thats where I recommend most people start.If your income is low, you will qualify for subsidies. There are two flavors of subsidies. 1: Premium subsidy, which lowers the monthly cost of the plans, and 2: Cost Sharing subsidies, which lowers the Out-of-pocket fees. Subsidies can be very generous, they can make many plans effectively free, but the subsidies reduce as your income rises. There is some subsidies available to people who make up to 4X the Federal Poverty level - about 80K for a family of four.If your income is below the federal poverty level, then you are not a great candidate for an ACA plan, and Medicaid is a better choice. The exchange healthcare.gov will help you determine this and will redirect you to Medicaid if its the best option.Hope that helps. 