Discovering What Makes a Great Health Insurance Plan
Facing serious, life-threatening illness is traumatic. We know, we've been
there. Everything else you're worrying about in life suddenly becomes totally
unimportant. The only thing that could make it worse is fear about your
health insurance coverage. Fear that the escalating bills will exhaust your
coverage limit. Fear that the specialist you want to see for treating your ill-
ness isn't approved by your insurance company. Fear that holes in the cover-
age will leave you personally responsible for some huge bills that could wipe
out all your savings - even put you in serious debt. That's why a solid health
insurance plan is so important.
An excellent health insurance plan must include five key ingredients:
A coverage limit high enough that it won't likely ever be exhausted, even
for the most catastrophic medical expenses
An annual dollar limit on your out-of-pocket responsibility that you can
live with
No dollar limits on types of expenses, such as dollar limits on daily room
charges or dollar limits for types of surgical procedures
Freedom to see specialists without a referral
Worldwide coverage
Do most plans meet all five criteria? Nope. We estimate that less than half of
the individual and group health plans sold in the United States include all five
elements that a great health insurance plan must include.
Your plan should include all five of the crucial ingredients because you
want a plan that won't, even in the worst cases, cause you major financial
hardship. And a plan that lets you choose the most-skilled care provider,
especially in serious or life-threatening situations - such as treating your
6-year-old's leukemia, surgically removing your spouse's brain tumor, or the
several skin-grafting operations needed after you've been badly burned.
Deciding Between Individual and Group
Sometimes you have a choice between individually owned coverage and
group coverage through an employer when it comes to deciding where to
insure your dependent children. This brief comparison of the advantages and
disadvantages of both types of plans will help you make a good choice.
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