Anyone not living under a rock in the last 30-days knows that one of the biggest issues in the news everywhere is about Health Insurance.

“It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government.”
– PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

Now while this was extremely hot right around the holidays… everyone’s temperatures seems to have cooled. This is because no matter what happens in the government creating or changing health insurance is never going to be like taking a beach in the military. Health insurance as an industry probably needs some review like we have gone through and done in banking and mortgages and credit cards.

What happened to this industry was a perversion of what everything costs to the extreme. I had a Grandfather who was a family physician in the Midwest. When he started it was the time of house calls and be on call all night for the doctor for patients. Most visits were paid in cash as I understand it (I grew up in our current system so this is all Greek to me). Over time as drugs and medical devices improved a new entity appeared in the medical world – the Drug Co’s – they know something about us all… We all wanted to live forever and we all wanted to live forever on a pill. That is what they gave us, that is what we have taken at any cost. We made ourselves into commodities for these Drug Co’s. The cost was the explosion of the medical costs for all of us.

80% of Arizona Bankruptcies are due to medical bills.

Health insurance has made millions on all of us in group plans or paying individuals. This is one of the only industries that I have ever worked with that I hear all the times of clients that it seems like the y just set their own rules and it seems like they can change them at any time. Who they will and will not insure, what they will pay and what they will not pay for a claim. The companies amend polices all the time, very similar to credit card companies.

So what do you and I need to know when we are looking for health insurance?
For starters, don’t sit on the sidelines and hope the government saves you. Whatever the government changes, know the industry will be scrambling to contact you no matter what plan you are on to help you evaluate if you are on the right plan and offer to help move you to the right plan.

Any health insurance agent should always start off with 2 avenues to help you. Are you more concerned about price and you are trying to save money? Or Are you more concerned about coverage and you want to make sure you are covered properly for your needs. These are the 2 ends of the spectrum and the rainbow exists in between them.

Know that your rule of thumb is that on average the premium for a healthy individual on any decent plan should be about $125/per person.

Be candidly honest with your agent about your concerns, your health issues, and your medications; you never want a claim denied because you lied or with held details of a condition. It happens and they you are really stuck because no one will cover you.

Be honest with yourself. A smoker will pay more, if you are not height weight proportionate you are going to pay more.

Let your Agent take what you tell him and fit that into what you told him you said you needed based off the initial question of money vs. coverage.