Health Insurance Makes Me Sick
I've been thinking more and more about health insurance. I keep hearing about it in the news -- but now I have to do something about it. I have been on my mom's good health insurance for years. The kind of insurance you can go to any doctor (pay a small copay) and the insurance company pays for everything else. The reason I have been thinking of health insurance so much is I turn 25 in a few months -- no more mom's insurance. Why can't my mom keep me on her insurance if she wants? Oh no, no, they want me to get my own plan and pay them the same my mom is paying, so they can make twice the income.
Anyways, so I looked online to see how much private health insurance would cost me a month. First of all, why does it have to be so confusing? And what the hell is coinsurance? Now I need insurance just for my coins? (Get it? Coin-surance?) And why does private insurance only pay a percentage of the bill? Every plan I looked at pays 80% of this or 50% of that. Why are they not paying 100%? Where is the "you pay me $100 a month and I pay for any medical bill" plan? Oh, and don't get me started on the unreal deductibles. Who has $15,000 laying around for medical bills? It might be easer just to put $100 in my savings account every month and use that money as my "insurance." I guess that would work until I get a really big hospital bill.
Right now, with all the quotes I got (and looking at my budget), I can either pay back my student loans or get health insurance. Guess which one will win? I'll give you a hint -- the one that prevents collectors calling me every day. I'll just have to hope I stay in good health -- or win the lottery.
February 24th, 2010 - 17:31
Look into the health savings accounts (HSA). They are set up so that you are covered if you have a major medical emergeny but you put money into a savings account and use it for any normal medical needs (tylenol, doc visits, etc.) Your premium is very resonable (we pay $139/month for both of us) but your deductable is a little higher…but that’s ok because you already have saved for it right?!?! You’re saving your money for when you actually need it instead of paying the insurance company “in-case” you get sick. It works great for justin and i because we are overall pretty healthy and dont get sick often. I’ve figured that we will save about $2500 a year.
February 25th, 2010 - 12:39
Insurance is sick… sick I tell you. I’ve been paying my private insurance forever, and when I was in school I still went to the Health Center because it was so cheap. I feel like I wasted so much money on insurance. Mine was only beneficial if something REALLY REALLY bad happened. Now I’ve let it lapse. It seems like so many people our age don’t have insurance anymore.