People do not buy car, house or health insurance because they know there will be an accident. They buy it as a gamble that there might be one.
Those who do not have health insurance do so because they either think they are in great health and do not need it, or they lost their job or have a low paying job and cannot afford to buy it, or they see it as a high cost and not worth it.
Every day we make choices or gamble on things. Should I eat my greens or do I chance getting cancer? Should I drive on my bald tires or will I get in an accident? The whole issue about not buying insurance is whether you might pay $200 to $500 now, or $20,000 to $500,000 later.
If a person paid $500 a month for ten years, it would have accumulated to $60,000. If a person goes in for one operation, and stays three days in the hospital, it might cost them $300,000. Where will they come up with the difference? Will they need to sell their house, or have their wages garnished, or empty their child’s college fund?
Some people hear about low-income people who go in for an emergency and get free medical treatment. Do you own a house? Do you have a retirement plan? Do you own stocks or have a boat? Then you will not qualify. All of these assets need to be depleted and the person needs to earn under approximately $14,000 a year.
The second reason for buying health insurance is that people will put off health care if they have to pay for it out of their pocket. A person without insurance is not just risking money, but they are risking their lives.
Most people without it will delay going to the doctor until they are seriously ill. It has been proven that people coming in for serious health issues could have prevented it, or lessened it if they had come in when the first symptoms had appeared. Plus, it might have been dealt with through medication or physical therapy, and now it might involve a serious operation, removal of something, or being permanently deformed.
Some people who lost their job and insurance and are trying to hang on until they get a new job. They will often not go see a doctor for things like sprains, infections, fevers or burns because they do not want it on their medical record as “an existing condition.” Insurance companies have been known to not give a person a policy for seemingly minor injuries. They might deny insurance because of a fall where a person pulled a muscle, or they may make the person wait a year before covering them. That infection or burn might turn into an ugly permanent scar, or it might get so bad that the surgeon decides to remove some skin or limb. The person may walk crooked the rest of their life because they did not attend to what they thought was a simple sprained ankle.
And, preventive care is one of the first things to go out the window. Paying $100 to $200 for an office visit, plus the cost of a shot, or a prescription is probably not essential to a person who does not want to pay $300 for health insurance.
So, it is wise to pay for health insurance monthly now, rather than assume you will never get sick, or skip preventive and early health care, resulting in paying a larger amount for patient care. Is it worth the gamble? You may be pleasantly surprised at the cost of a policy. Speak with an insurance sales professional, who offers several different kinds of policies. And, note, the bigger your deductible, the bigger your savings.