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.

Individual health insurance whether funded through an employer or not, allows us to weigh in the decision making process and get the type of coverage that best fits our needs. Whether a low-deductible, high-deductible, co-pay, maternity, co-insurance amount, etc., we can decide. The problem arises when our employer makes the decisions for us and we are stuck with whatever they decided that is right for us.

There are so many factors that apply when looking for health insurance that it is truly somewhat unfair to place all employees under the same plan. This is the very reason why there is such a growing trend from group health insurance over to individual health insurance.

More and more people are getting their healthcare coverage through individual policies. This is creating a need by consumers to be educated and well informed. Up until recently, consumers didn’t have to because they were not purchasing directly their health insurance. They basically just had to agree to whatever their human resources director would provide.

Health insurance is an individual need, it is a familiy need, it is not a common decision for a one-size-fits-all approach.

If you are one such consumer, get informed, do your research, and get affordable quality health insurance from a trusted licensed insurance agent.

Has anyone heard about the State of New York and the recent law regarding health insurance that taxes directly and indirectly consumers?

How is that being implemented and what effect will it have on the already crippled economy of New York?

I am not an economist, but I do know that taxing the masses hurts growth. That’s pretty simple to understand, right?

Well, taxing health insurance consumption whether through the insurers or directly to consumers doesn’t make much sense. With healthcare costs being high enough already and the system being inefficient additional burdens will only increase the number of uninsureds. New York needs to find a different way and manner in which to address its deficit. The consumer, the average consumer seems to carry too much of the burden of the inefficiencies built in by our state and federal governments.

Health insurance is not the conduit by which states should be recouping its deficits. It is then the consumer who actually purchases health insurance who carries the burden for the rest of us and for the uninsureds.

For someone who cares enough about their health, and is responsible enough to be covered, it seems very unfair that they have to pay an additional tax to support everyone else who may not be responsible enough to carry health insurance.

I am not putting down anyone who can’t purchase health insurance due to not being able to afford it, but to make those of us who care enough to carry health insurance coverage pay an additional tax seems very unfair.

Just like in everything else in life, people that take the time to research, be educated, and be well informed, usually reap the benefits of their new knowledge. In order to get what you want, you must first find out what that is and know the difference. The same happens in individual health insurance. You must first do your homework so that you can identify your real needs and what you want from a health insurance policy. Once you know this, you can then evaluate from all of the different insurance carriers and insurance plans. There are definitely many choices and options available. There are deductibles to deal with, co-insurance to address, and maximums and minimums. Do you need prescription coverage, an HMO or a PPO?

It is a fact that this is not necessarily easy, but it is doable. It is also very necessary in order to get the coverage you want at the right price and with the right benefits. It is also a fact that there are licensed health insurance agents that can help you in this process. They can save you a lot of time and aggravation and just as important, money. A good experienced licensed health insurance agent is a valuable tool at your disposal in attaining the right health coverage. The problem is finding the right one that you can trust and count on to assist your needs and theirs or the carriers’ needs.

In conclusion, before finding the right health insurance plan, find the right 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.

While searching for a health insurance quote, I saw one of header tags for a website that read “Blue Cross & Blue Shield”. Thinking this was Blue Cross & Blue Shield and clicked on the link and landed on what looked to be a Blue Cross advertising form. I filled in the requested personal information as required to receive a quote. The website then generated various health insurance quotes for various different health insurance companies, but guess what, there was no Blue Cross & Blue Shield quote. The reality is that I was just looking to review their plans and premiums, but if I was a customer really looking for Blue Cross & Blue Shield I would be very concerned and disappointed.

Nevertheless, I then began to receive telephone call from many different people wanting to help me get health insurance. I did not know who was calling me, the companies they were from, or whether they were even licensed health insurance agents or not. I have not yet stopped receiving telephone calls.

The reason for this is simply that these websites are advertising with some other company’s branded name and then selling yours and my private information to as many buyers as possible. They do not bother to check whether these are legitimate enterprises, in compliance with state federal regulations, ethical, or even licensed.

This is very different from how other websites operate, such as VitalOne Health. The information you provide is secured and only used to provide you and only you with assistance in attaining health insurance. Our agents are licensed and managed for quality assurance and product knowledge, and compliance.

Well I hope she explains her comments a bit more clearly. One would think that the government’s focus should first be on reforming Medicare and Medicaid which are not just expensive programs, they are truly unaffordable and very out of control. These are the programs that our government runs today yet they now want to say that in order to be more efficient they want to do more! I don’t think that’s really a good idea. Yeah, let’s bring in someone who definitely knows how to run things inefficiently, very costly, and with low quality.

Our government needs to fix Medicare first and foremost, then worry about wanting to run anything else. Our country’s Medicare program is very expensive and begs for plenty of management improvement. Our healthcare industry is one of our largest industries and our government wants to come in and sell us in the illusion that they are better suited for running this industry. Are we kidding!?

If you remove Medicare and Medicaid, our statistics begin to look a bit better with respect to costs. In addition, one thing is clear, there has to be some reform to healthcare. Yet, the reform has to be intelligent healthcare reform, not just the government telling us that their business running skills are better than our private sector. One piece of reform that needs to be implemented is to create the incentive to be insured whether through tax credits or by enforcing a penalty for those without health insurance that earn above a certain threshold.

This would bring a fairer participation by consumers. Due to the fact that health insurance is not either mandatory, strongly encouraged through financial benefits or financial penalties, many consumers that are healthy do not get insured and assume the risk, which we all pay for later on anyway. The ones who actually want coverage more than not are the unhealthy. If only the unhealthy seek health insurance and the healthy do not get insured, it then fails to spread the risk appropriately and thus fails to be insurance.

Government insurance is not the answer…

It is important when searching for an individual health insurance policy to understand the health insurance company’s underwriting criteria and their process. The reason for this is more than just not to have wasted your time by applying to a carrier that is going to decline your application, but because of that very outcome, a declination of coverage.

This result serves then as a red flag to other insurance companies with respect to providing you coverage. There are even carriers that do not go one any further with an applicant once they learn that they have been declined for coverage in the past. The reason for the declination is not even looked into, for the worry that they might be providing coverage to high utilizer.

Yes, I agree this is unfair but it is the reality in which we live today. Therefore, it is important to understand a carriers process. It is better to not even apply for coverage if you along with your agent believe that due to your specific medical conditions, age, medical history, etc. will have a good chance of being declined.

There are many carriers available today and only a good experienced insurance agent can help you navigate these rough waters. The cost of the policy doesn’t change anyway. It remains the same, so why not utilize (no pun intended) their services to your benefit (again, no pun intended).

Here’s to your good health and coverage!

Co-Pay is the portion of the medical bill that you the policy holder is responsible for when medical services are rendered by a physician, these co-pays are pre-set dollar amounts.

Insurance companies offer unlimited, limited and no co-pay doctor office visit depending on the type of plan that you are purchasing. Typically a plan with limited or a pre-set number of office visits are lower priced when compared to plans that offer unlimited office visits. There are plans that do not require you to meet your deductible before using the co-pay benefit at the doctor.

When to purchase unlimited vs. limited or no co-pay plans? A healthy individual that visits a physician twice a year or less would save money by purchasing a plan that offers no co-pays or limited co-pay office visits, a family with children would benefit by purchasing a plan with unlimited doctor office visits, children are more prone to getting sick, injured and will visit doctors more often during the year. Adults with children will also be more prone to becoming sick so a plan with unlimited doctor office visits would be beneficial in the long run.

What do you think?

Everyone is talking about the problem, the number of uninsureds and the rising costs of healthcare. It is something important, as it relates to our health. More so, not just ours, but our children’s and our families. Healthcare has a cost, there is no other way to state this fact than just that; healthcare has a cost. It is also not an inexpensive cost, but expensive and it will increase as a percentage of our overall nation’s income (our GDP). The reason for this is as simple as just saying that while our technologies improve with research and development over time; our wants for curing ills that were incurable before will rise.

We will develop new and better technologies to improve our lifes. We will develop new drugs and treatments to battle and cure diseases. All of this will have costs.

There is no shame in this. We are dedicating ourselves to improving our health and wellness.

Nevertheless, our system, our healthcare system and the way in which it operates lends itself to many inefficiencies that have nothing to do with improving our overall care. This must change in order to maintain some semblance of a balance. Many of these inefficiencies are politically motivated and they do not benefit our overall healthcare.

More government alone is not the answer. It never is the answer, but a combination of government allowing the private sector to provide more efficient healthcare and also proving some subsized assistance in some form will improve our system.

Universal healthcare can take on so many different definitions. Yet, I believe most everyone agrees that as a nation we believe that our citizens should be able to attain healthcare at an affordable price.

Remember this, healthcare is as much a personal responsibility as it is a right to have it be affordable in our country.

Health insurance is needed to inject fairness into the system. Private health insurance is the goal, just be efficient.