People may tell you not to worry about the cost of health insurance. They obviously haven’t lived with your budget concerns.
Having or not having health insurance in America these days is a major debate. Those that have it know the benefits it offers.
Those that don’t think it’s a waste of time and money and they don’t need it – that is they don’t need it right now – but later? That may be a whole different can of worms.
The question still remains though, how does one get affordable health insurance in this economy? How does one stay safe and be covered and not be broke? Good questions and the answers are highly individual to each person’s specific situation. Of course, the bottom line is and will always be what dollars are there to go around in the household to pay for everything from soup to nuts and still include health insurance plans? This is even more of an issue when you are considering buying individual insurance and you happen to be self-employed – meaning your income will vary wildly from month to month.
Being self-employed and wanting insurance means finding a way to budget it and doing with less someplace else. Why is this a smart idea even if it hurts? It’s smart because if you are hurt, need medical care and don’t have health insurance, then your business may go under because you need the funds to pay the medical bills. If you work for someone else; well, lucky is the worker who has their health care costs picked up by the company.
Let’s say you want individual health insurance and you work for yourself or for someone else – either way, your premiums will vary depending on what you choose in terms of health insurance plans. Things like co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles are costly, but they are usually the plans with lower premiums.
So there you have it, the health insurance plans with lower initial costs usually have higher premiums, and the health plans that mean you need to use a network (like HMOs) will cost less. What to choose? You choose what your personal preference is, as health insurance coverage is a highly individualized thing.
Can any of these choices be done on a budget? You bet they can, as despite prevailing opinion that no one can afford health insurance, there are affordable health insurance policies out there for everyone. It’s just that some people, no matter how reasonable a health insurance plan is, still won’t buy one for their own reasons. For those individuals, when life happens, they too will see the necessity of needing health insurance.
Clelland Green is with Benepath.com, a leader in providing health insurance quotes. Benepath provides individuals, families, and businesses with affordable health insurance quotes in just a few mouse clicks. To learn more, visit http://www.benepath.com.
