If you do not have health insurance, the bills will be out of sight. Being uninsured is not the answer to saving money.
It is true that having health insurance will save you money. How is that you may wonder? If you do not have it, you will not be spending money on premiums, so how could you not save pots of money? Well, consider this. Let us say you have been uninsured for five years and the premiums you would have paid were $200 per month for five years, for a total of $12,000. That is a chunk of change right?
OK, now, let us say you are involved in a car accident and you sustain spinal cord injuries, resulting in partial paralysis and four months of hospital time, four more months of therapy. Let us also say that you will be unable to work again. The average stay in a hospital is 4.6 days; round it to five days for the sake of simplicity. Those five days cost about $26,120, just for the stay, not including anything extra. For a one-month stay, the hospital bill would be over $130,000. For four months, you would be likely declaring bankruptcy.
The point here is that even if you were in the hospital for one month, for a potential bill of $130,000, you had only saved $12,000 after five years of not paying a health insurance premium for policy coverage. In other words, you have saved nothing because the costs of your hospital stay, therapy, medications and other services far outstrips that $12,000. If you had purchased the family health insurance, you would have been covered and only had to pay out a small portion of the bill.
Still think not having family health insurance is a good idea? Likely not, and with good reason. If you have children to protect and they are injured, the costs for care could be even higher. Do you have that kind of money lying around? Probably not, as most people don’t have access to that kind of money. Without health insurance you are a good candidate to be permanently cash strapped and possibly bankrupt.
With health insurance you stand a chance of coming out the other side in good health, healed and still financially viable. Health insurance, whether it is individual or family health insurance, is worth its weight in gold. Life happens and when it does, if you are not covered, you are in a whole world of hurt.
One other thing to think about is this: if health care reform does progress any further than it is right now and the “mandatory health insurance” comes into effect in 2014, you will have to have health insurance. Better to get it now when the rates are good than wait until the market become uncertain and volatile, thus offering higher fluctuating prices.
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 Benepath.com.
