Health insurance costs vary dramatically. My wife and I have bought our own insurance in CO, CA, and OR. We usually pay around $150-250 / month (for us both, not each) for a decent plan with a deductible of $2k-5k. I always use esurance.com.

That said, he's in the worst insurance market in the US: NYC. To get the equivalent of the $168 / month plan we have now, esurance was at least $800-1200. Sickening. Best bet I found is Freelancers Union. Health insurance is horribly broken in NYC.

I'm also a consultant, and use Kaiser in California. I'm paying about $160 a month for full coverage. Although my plan does have a $2000 deductible, preventive care is free, so other than my premiums I haven't had to cough up anything yet.

What about prescription drug coverage? What are your copays for non-generic vs. generic?

That I can't answer, as I haven't needed to get a prescription for anything in awhile.

Check out www.ehealthinsurance.com. It's legit and many health insurance company websites use their platform to return quotes.

Be careful if you have certain prescription needs and check with each company if they cover what you need; the list changes company to company.

I got a lot of questions about this so I added a paragraph which hopefully helps to address it:

"Healthcare is a big and challenging topic, so if you find this to a problematic point for you, there’s a whole chapter devoted to it in the all-around very thorough book Working for Yourself. The short version is that if you can get on your spouse’s plan, that’s a great option, and COBRA can also be used if affordable, and can be turned into a personal plan after 18 months. I decided to go with an individual plan, looking extensively at both freelancersunion.org and ehealthinsurance.com before choosing a plan from the latter."