Cheap health insurance choices

Why buy health insurance?

Perhaps it is too obvious to justify expensive health plans on the grounds that having good health is essential to holding down a job and having a good quality of life. But, in this case, the obvious is true. If you have health insurance and can go for treatment immediately you feel symptoms, this can prevent the small problem from developing into something life-threatening. Consider the alternative. If you cannot afford health insurance, you are forced to wait until your symptoms have reached the point when an ER will treat you as an emergency case. This often means the treatment is far more extensive and expensive than it would have been. It also reduces the chances you will make a complete recovery.

What is the problem?

Every aspect of the healthcare service is for profit so the cost of basic care and the different types of treatment has consistently risen faster than inflation. Consequently the US has the most expensive healthcare service in the world. In fact, the US spends more than twice-per-head the amount spent by the number 2 country yet, by all international measures, we have a seriously underperforming service. This also means the US has more uninsured people than any other developed country in the world and it can only get worse since there are no real controls on the cost of services.

Before Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act will bring more people under the protection of health insurance. Before 2014 when the Act is to come fully into force, states must put health exchanges in place. This will make more cheap health insurance available to all. Equally importantly, insurers cannot refuse to accept children and young adults with preexisting health problems. There is also to be a greater emphasis on preventive diagnosis and treatment, which should improve the health of the nation. As an aside, 2012 will see the Supreme Court decide whether the Act is constitutional.

Generally

The majority of people are covered by group plans as a part of their employment. As the recession has affected the business community, more employers have either cancelled cover or forced their employees pay more. In turn. this pushes more people on to individual policies where the costs are higher. It is more beneficial to take a pay cut and retain an employee plan. This is the really cheap health insurance for today.

Cheap health insurance — group or individual plans?

When looking for cheap health insurance, what do you do if offered a choice between a group and an individual plan? Which is the cheap health insurance option?

As the names suggest, an individual plan is a policy you buy from a private health insurance company, whereas a group plan is one you access because you belong to a group of people. The most common form of group plan is offered by employers. As the US fell into a recession, business at all levels found the going tough. Now, even though there is a tax credit to encourage small businesses to continue and, in some cases, expand health coverage, most employers have been asking their employees to pay more. Even so, these employment-based plans tend to be cheap health insurance as the risks are spread out among quite large groups of people.