There are certain things in life that we cannot time, and one of these is needing healthcare services. Aside from managing basic healthcare services such as doctor visits, simple examinations, etc., catastrophic accidents or illnesses are unpredictable. This is why we all need health insurance, so that we transfer this risk to the carrier. The carrier distributes the risk amongst a large pool of insureds in order to effectively manage healthcare costs for all of the policyholders.

Everyday that passes without being insured is a day in which we run the risk of suffering from a catastrophic incident and not having the finacial support of health insurance. Health insurance coverage should be viewed as what it is, protection for our health. There are many people thatt complain that they have paid years of health insurance premiums and have only used it to go to the doctor twice a year. My response to that is that they should be very thankful for maintaining their health. The opposite would be the unfortunate perosn that suffered a catastrophic illness or accident and although they were covered by their health insurance, they would have much rather not have to have suffered such an illness or accident.

It is like the person who may be upset because they haven’t collected on their life insurance!

Be healthy and wise, get health insurance through a licensed and experienced health insurance agent.

The American public struggles to make decisions on buying individual health insurance policies, mainly because health insurance has been supplied by employers for decades. The average worker is told by the company they are working for if you want health insurance, this is the way it is. Because a large portion of the employee rate is paid by the employer and because it’s easy just to add your dependents, most people know very little about how health insurance works or the reason a lower deductible plan costs more. Not being knowledgeable about health insurance can cost you a lot of money. The time factor also makes purchasing health insurance an expensive venture. Because most people don’t have the knowledge on how health insurance works (the amount of time needed for underwriting), they wait to the last minute to purchase protection.

First, you need to know there are different types of health insurance plans available to purchase. Major medical PPO plans for an individual has different guidelines than the group Major medical plan you have had for years. There are also Short term Medical plans and Mini medicals to consider. And on top of different products to consider there is a time factor, depending on your current health status, to speed up your selection process or be penalized with preexisting clauses. In less than two paragraphs I’ve probably mentioned five phrases that have no meaning to you whatsoever. It doesn’t matter what your income is, with the price of everything going up, protecting your income needs to be a priority to survive in this economy.

Second, become familiar with your current policy. Understand the layers of protection in the group health insurance policy you have today. You may not be aware of your total liability only because you have been so healthy. When you look you’ll see you have co pays for doctor visits and for your prescriptions. Anything at the hospital is subject to an annual deductible and coinsurance and an additional deductible per occurrence on some procedures. These types of limits are common in all policies, these are ways to keep the premium low enough for everyone to afford. When selecting an Individual Policy these levels of protection are normally higher.

Last but most important, hire a professional licensed agent to help you understand your options; agents’ commission is already included in the premiums, this makes them part of buying a policy. Get in touch with a general agency on the internet; they represent multiple individual health insurance companies. They are not tied to one carrier; this will assure you are getting the best coverage for your needs. Once you have found an agent and an agency you are comfortable with, stay in contact with them, especially at renewal time. If you are not happy with what the insurance company is telling you about the increased costs at renewal, have your agent shop for a new carrier for you.

The “it” is any type of usual and customary healthcare costs. Why should this be so difficult? I am not specifically talking about large catastrophic costs. A heart surgery is going to be expensive no matter what. Cancer treatment is also going to be expensive at any hospital. Also, these are conditions or ailments that need to be treated to a large extent regardless of the cost.

Yet, outside of catastrophic medical care, our basic healthcare services; primary care visits, specialist visits, diagnostic services, MRI’s, x-rays, blood tests, physicals, stress tests, EKG’s, etc. are a big mystery to really, most of us. We simply are not able to get from providers what these services cost as easily as we would any most other services in our economy.

Why? Why aren’t these services advertised and promoted freely so we can all know what they cost. As consumers we understand quality and cost. We just simply want to know ahead of time how much is it and for what?

Don’t attempt to sneak cost line items and services we did not receive into our bills.

We are American consumers that do not want things for free, but we want to make good decisions when it comes to our healthcare services. Some of us may want to go to a doctor who charges lower prices for their services than another doctor who also has more expensive magazines in their waiting area.

One doctor may bill you for 30 minutes worth of a visit even though they actually consulted with you for only ten minutes. Why?

All we want is clarity.

The result to all this confusion is part of the reason of why we tend to be so fixated on our health insurance plans covering for these services (co-pays, doctor visits, specialists, deductibles, etc., since we simply don’t understand these costs.

As Americans, we want our highly trained and specialized doctors to earn a good living. These individuals are highly respects and rightfully so for their hard work and intelligence. Yet, all we want to know is how much it costs?

Specifically, amongst others, is a plan being promoted by the Commonwealth Fund, which envisions a partnership between government sponsored health plans and private insurers.

They would work in combination to offer consumers more choices, but the plan requires that consumers purchase and/or attain healthcare coverage.

They mention that their plan design would reduce the growth at which healthcare costs are rising from year to year.

Whether accurate or not, I don’t know, especially since the results from the State of Massachusetts are not in.

On the surface though, a combination plan offering between government and private groups seem to make sense in the sense that it appears to promote competition.

The plan also wants to reward efficiencies and penalize waste. This also makes sense on the surface, but the question is how effective would it be?

Look, it appears that we are beyond just repeating that we need a better system and are now prepared to begin to do something about it.

Remember one thing though, our healthcare services professionals are tops. Our commitment to excellence and competition place us higher than all other countries.

We need health insurance for all. We need affordable health insurance for all.