The most important thing to look for in health insurance is to be sure the policy you’re considering covers all the big expenses. You simply can’t afford to be blindsided by a huge medical bill you weren’t expecting. Read the fine print on any health insurance policy you are considering before you sign on the dotted line. Exclusions, hidden co-pays and monetary caps on your coverage can cost you dearly.
We really ought to think of health insurance as sickness insurance to help protect our loved ones from financial catastrophe. Insuring our health is our job, and we do pretty well on that score. We’re more health conscious and generally in better physical condition than our parents were, but we live in a far different world. A hospital stay can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A single chemo treatment could cost you over $20,000. Health costs are insane! Nobody can withstand that kind of financial impact.
What can you do when health care costs are spiralling out of control and health insurance premiums have become all but unaffordable? If you expect your health insurance to cover all or most out of pocket expenses, your premium will be out of sight. Better to bite the bullet and pay the higher co-pay for a doctor visit or a lab test, especially if you are healthy and rarely use your insurance.
You might be forced to accept a health insurance policy with a higher deductible simply to be able to afford the premiums. What you can’t afford to accept is health insurance that excludes or puts a low cap on serious illness. The alternative, losing all you’ve worked for your entire life, is unthinkable.
Are you willing to risk your family’s financial future and all the wealth you’ve worked hard to accumulate over your lifetime on a single throw of the dice? “Unless you’re Bill Gates you’re just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick.”
That’s a direct quote from Dr. David Himmelstein, the lead author of a Harvard University study carried out jointly by researchers at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical school that found the leading cause of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are medical bills. Even people who had private insurance were faced with medical bills from a serious illness in excess of thirteen thousand dollars. And they thought they were insured!
It was much worse for cancer patients. Their uncovered bills averaged nearly thirty six thousand dollars. These are sobering, frightening statistics.
If you or one of your loved ones is suddenly stricken with a major illness or seriously injured, the last thing you need is a mountain of debt that can wipe you out financially. When I was shopping for health insurance coverage recently, my agent told me something I should have known all along. He said that you buy health insurance to protect your assets. He’s right of course. I just never thought of it that way. Have you?