Health Insurance Advice

Health Insurance

Health Insurance is one of the most important things we need today. Most countries, like the UK have a single payer system called the NHS. The government pays for the healthcare from income tax. If you are sick, your are covered. Sadly America is not the same. Here, no insurance could be as good as a death sentence. That is why you need to be insured.

Learn from this horror story! My late friend was young, healthy and did not see the need for insurance coverage. She was fit as fiddle, had been all her life and never visited a doctor. The she went on holidays, felt ill and dizzy. She thought it was the heat, but things worsened. She got back home, saw her doctor and learned she had cancer. Another visit later, coupled with exhorbant test costs going into the hundreds and the cancer treatments that run into the tens of thousands, she ran out of money. She could not be treated any further and had no insurance to fall back on. Her decline was fast, terrible, and maybe avoidable, and then she died. Are you crying yet? Had my friend had insurance things may have turned out differently. I was that type of person too, but now I have health insurance, thanks to her.

There are many types of insurance. The traditional variety is the Fee-For-Service Plan. The benefit with this is that you have a wide range of options versus any other plan see the doctor you want. Monthly premiums are paid and you can deduct up to $500. This amounts to total of all medical costs you probably pay in a year before insurance covers you. Then the insurance cover most of your bills, leaving you about 20% to deal with. The other option is HMO, Health Management Organization. They have a team of doctors in one local centralized location that everyone has to use. Though your choices are now more limited, the cost are considerably lower.

Most employees are insured at work. Employers buy health insurance at group rates, saving money and offer much cheaper insurance to their staff than other individual services. Sadly, this type of insurance is not set up for those with chronic conditions or serious illnesses. Leave the company due to long term illness and lose your health insurance. No insurer is willing to cover people with long-term conditions because their costs will be high. Roll over and die? Well, not exactly, but if this describes you then you are stuck being ill, working while you are ill and being unable to find another job, no matter how distasteful it may be. What a catch-22?

Whatever your circumstances do not do what my late friend did and what a lot of Americans are suffering through right now. You must get health insurance now, even if you are very fit and wonderfully healthy. You never know when illness or something worse may strike. Ready to stop playing Russian roulette with your life?