I'm going to visit the US for a while and I am obliged to have some health insurance with this:


• medical benefits of at least $100,000 per accident or illness
• repatriation of remains in the amount of $25,000
• medical evacuation to the home country in the amount of $50,000
• a deductible (the amount for which you are responsible before insurance
coverage becomes effective) not to exceed $500 per accident or illness
• co-payment of medical expenses (the portion not covered by insurance that the
insured pays him or herself) or no more than 25%

I just spend the afternoon trying to find something and, to put it mildly, it is very, very difficult. Specially because as a foreigner I could not discriminate good from scams.

Any fellow Catholic has any advice regarding this?

Quote from: Jonah

I'm going to visit the US for a while and I am obliged to have some health insurance
....

I just spend the afternoon trying to find something and, to put it mildly, it is very, very difficult. Specially because as a foreigner I could not discriminate good from scams.

Any fellow Catholic has any advice regarding this?

We traveled to the U.S. and were not obliged. Who obliges you? Is there some new law on this in the last couple of years? Where are you travelling from?

It is required because of my visa (J-1).

From what I could gather, the cheapest option is to buy travel insurance. But looking for it in the internet was surprisingly hard. I mean, if I search "travel insurance" then I get a bunch of plans that in some way or another do not meet one of those requirements.

An apparently more fruitful approach was to look for "J1 health insurance". Then I did find plans that met those conditions. But somehow it seemed dodgy.

From the State Department website:  The Exchange Visitor (J) non-immigrant visa category is for individuals approved to participate in work-and study-based exchange visitor programs.

In other words, he's a likely coming to the U.S. as a student.

All I can say is, "Welcome to Obamacare".

If the applicant is non-white, he could just come through Mexico so he can apply for free healthcare, a free college education, and receive government welfare.  His problem is that he's trying to comply with the law.

Do you know anyone else who's made the trip in similar circuмstances to ask?

TKGS is right; it's a student visa.

@shin: I don't know, but in many cases the school covers health insurance. When it doesn't, well, you can buy through them. Only problem is: it's more than 6k for a semester!

In any case, I found this one that I can afford:

http://www.compassbenefits.com/atlas_travel_series.html

It looks legit.