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Health Insurance Comparison – Your Guide to Picking the Best Policy For You
health insurance comparison
When you’re shopping for the best policy for you and your family, you need a health insurance comparison to help you decide. Health insurance is important. The cost of medical services is soaring, and if you’re not covered by a policy, you’ll soon wish you were, probably the very next time you go to a doctor. It isn’t unheard of for an unexpected medical expense to bankrupt someone who isn’t covered. Even if you have a policy, chances are your premiums are very high. Employers today aren’t paying as much toward employee health insurance as before, and some are getting rid of it as a benefit altogether. Here’s a health insurance comparison to help you decide which policy is best for you.
• HMOs-HMO stands for Health Maintenance Organization, and are the standard employer-provided policy. The best thing about an HMO is the low cost of premiums and co-pays as compared to other kinds of policies. The worst part is that your flexibility in obtaining medical care is severely curtailed in an HMO. With this type of policy, all of your medical care is coordinated by a primary care physician. Any time you need to see a specialist, your primary care physician must write a referral for you. This requirement means that you have to visit the doctor more often than you normally would, because each referral requires an office visit (and a co-pay!). However, your insurance policy won’t pay for your specialist visit unless you get the referral first. In an HMO, you’re basically exchanging freedom of choice for lower costs.
• PPOs-PPO stands for Preferred Provider Organization. In a PPO, you’re in charge of your medical care, but the premiums and co-pays are higher than with an HMO. If you see a doctor in the insurance network, you’ll pay a reduced fee, but your policy will still pay some benefits even if you see an out of network doctor. In spite of the higher costs, many people prefer the PPO policy, since it’s less complicated and offers significantly more freedom than an HMO.
In a POS, you visit a primary care physician that has previously agreed to provide discounted fees to policy holders. On the downside, its flexibility is limited, since all of your medical care must be coordinated by a primary care physician, much like in an HMO.
• Medicare-Medicare is a single payer program that’s run by the federal government. It’s available to all Americans age 65 and older, as well as younger people who are disabled. You pay into the policy through mandatory payroll deductions, and are automatically enrolled upon reaching age 65. Everyone automatically gets Medicare Part A to pay for hospitalization. If you want Part B (to pay for doctor visits and lab tests) or Part D (to pay for prescriptions), you need to make a formal request and pay a small monthly premium.
• Medicaid-This is a social welfare health insurance program for low-income people, and you qualify for it based on your income. It’s run jointly by the federal government and the states, and each state handles Medicaid cases through its own internal program that the federal government helps fund. Each policy will have features that are attractive to certain people. When it comes to health insurance, one size definitely does not fit all. Once you find the program for you, you’ll feel more secure, knowing that your family’s medical needs are covered and your finances are safe from disaster brought on by unforeseen medical circumstances.
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