Contracting to government is a transition others have done before me, and I am writing this blog for the benefit of those who might do it after me. This is my third week of transition from contracting to government. I have started my new job as Research Physicist and doing what I can to make sense of everything.

I am very happy that I did make this transition even though change is hard and mentally exhausting.

There are many new aspects in this role and although I am in the same (military) industry, it looks very different. There seems to be a lot more freedom as to what type of work I do even if it has to pertain to the goals of the branch that I am part of. Having this type of freedom is quite critical to my overall happiness and therefore, I am hopeful that this is going to be a better fit for me.

I am still getting used to all the options for benefits and the enormously increased choices I have for health insurance. I did have to pick something so I went ahead and did so.

Since I blogged earlier about personal health insurance during unemployment, everything has come full circle now with government employment. Academia, Industry, unemployment (although very brief), government employment, I have done it all now it seems.

So, I had Aetna Gold while working at Booz and it was not too bad. Now I have the following plans and costs associated with each in the government.

I only share these in case you find yourself in a similar situation going from contracting to government and have to make decisions amidst many, many options.

It is nice, sometimes, for someone to just tell you what they did, so you have a reference.

Health insurance: GEHA Benefit Plan Standard Self: Costing USD 60.54 Biweekly

Vision insurance: Aetna Vision Preferred, PPO Standard: Costing USD 3.09 Biweekly

Dental insurance: GEHA Connection Dental Federal: Costing USD 11.04 Biweekly

These choices are mainly motivated in the following ways. I don’t have any dependents. I am 30. I don’t generally use my health insurance a whole lot other than for an annual exam, maybe a cold. In case of needing health insurance, I did not want a very high deductible either. The max out-of-pocket, however, is much higher than the deductible with this option.

For dental and vision, I mainly wanted the routine checkups covered without copays and things like glasses which should be all zero copays with these options.

Good luck, and let me know any questions!

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