{"id":1805,"date":"2008-05-14T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=1805"},"modified":"2018-11-21T19:38:14","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T03:38:14","slug":"finding-affordable-health-insurance-when-youre-on-your-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/finding-affordable-health-insurance-when-youre-on-your-own\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Affordable Health Insurance When You’re On Your Own"},"content":{"rendered":"
In America’s current healthcare system, in most cases, you’re better off with the crowd.<\/strong> Usually, that crowd is your employer or a government pool like Medicare or Medicaid. But sometimes, due to choices you make, or circumstances you can’t control, you end up on your own, with full responsibility for your healthcare expenses. Here are some circumstances under which you might end up needing to seek affordable individual health insurance:<\/p>\n In some other circumstances, you may have the option to participate in group medical insurance, but it’s not in your financial interest to do so.<\/p>\n In any event, if you are shopping for individual health insurance, you need to keep in mind several important things.<\/p>\n Initial considerations<\/strong><\/em> In the group insurance market, the government prohibits discrimination against people by age or health condition. Your employer can’t legally charge you more in premium, deny you coverage, or offer you a reduced benefit plan because you’re sick. In the individual market, insurance companies put you through a process called, \u201cunderwriting,\u201d which means they’ll only offer you coverage if they think they’ll get more from you in premium than they’ll pay in claims.<\/p>\n You can look at it as a gamble \u2014 the insurance company is betting that you’ll stay healthy (if it’s not a good bet they’ll deny you coverage); you’re betting that you’ll get sick and need healthcare. Underwriting helps them detect if you’re trying to \u201cgame the system,\u201d by looking for insurance while you’re expecting big medical bills.<\/p>\n The side effect of this is that older or less healthy individuals end up paying higher premiums, and can even have trouble obtaining any coverage at all. So the game is very different if you’re a 50-year-old female who smokes and suffers from diabetes (you can pretty much forget about getting commercial insurance) than if you’re a 25-year-old male with no previous health problems (companies will be lining up to offer you coverage).<\/p>\n This is one of the wonders of America’s healthcare system \u2014 those who need coverage the most are least able to obtain it. It’s also the Achilles heel of presidential candidate John McCain’s health reform proposal \u2014 his plans would drive more people into the individual insurance market without adequately addressing this issue. (The Democrats’ plans have problems of their own.)<\/p>\n\n
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\nFirst of all, if you’re choosing to voluntarily switch from group to individual coverage, you need to carefully consider what you’re giving up: government protection from discrimination by insurance companies.<\/p>\n