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By Kevin M
 Millions of people are going without health insurance coverage right now. Some are forced to go without it due to health conditions that render them uninsurable, or will cover them at such a high cost that they can’t afford it.
But health insurance can be expensive even for the healthiest among us, and many more are doing without for this reason. They’re taking a chance that nothing major will go wrong with them. While that may be doable when you’re young and healthy, the minute something goes wrong the whole situation changes.
Generally speaking, even lousy health insurance is better than none at all. Here are at least some of the reasons why.
ID card for hospital admission
One of the best reasons for having at least some kind of health insurance is for the identification (ID) card it provides. Hospitals can’t refuse to treat you if you show up in the emergency room, but having an ID card makes the whole process easier.
Like any other business, hospitals want to know how they’ll get paid for the services they provide. An ID card removes that question. It says you’re part of a plan and they’ll get paid at least something.
Continue reading Why Lousy Health Insurance is Better than None at All →
By Kevin M
 Last summer my wife had shoulder surgery and eight months later the bills are still coming in. Yes, we have health insurance, but as everyone who’s ever had a large medical procedure knows, you get bills from people you didn’t even know were in the operating room.
I had some idea how to handle this situation already, but this experience has taught me a few things about how to deal with medical claims, and that’s what I want to share.
Here are a few cosmic realities about healthcare and health insurance that we all need to be aware of going into any medical procedure:
- health insurance plans are riddled with co-pays and co-insurance provisions—you will always have to pay something
- health insurance plans contain exclusions and other gotcha provisions
- medical providers are not always good at coordinating with insurance companies
- health insurance companies and large healthcare providers are both bureaucracies
- we are ultimately responsible for any and all unpaid medical expenses
The best ways to handle all of these obstacles is to get involved (early) and then to be relentless. And I mean relentless!
Continue reading How to Take Control of Your Medical Bills →
By Kevin M
 Job seekers often insist on finding a full-time job, not only for a full-time paycheck but also for the benefits package that usually comes with it. Topping the list of benefits is health insurance—the one none of us want to be without.
But what if you don’t want a full-time job? What if you could get a part-time job and still at least get health insurance? You’re in luck—there are employers out there—prominent ones—that do offer health insurance for their part-time staff. Maybe one of them could be a good fit for you.
Why you might need or prefer a health plan from a part-time job
Off the top of my head I can think of at least four situations where you might want to consider taking a part-time job in order to get health insurance coverage:
- You’re self-employed
- You’re unemployed
- You work a full-time job with no health plan
- You’re any one of the above but considered uninsurable for health reasons
Let’s talk about that last item a bit. Private health plans can and do weed out and deny coverage to people who they consider likely to file claims. It could be because of a previous bout with cancer or heart disease, or an ongoing condition as ordinary as high blood pressure. The advantage of employer group plans is that you will be accepted into the plan by virtue of your employment. You will not only be accepted in spite of any pre-existing health conditions, but you won’t be required to pay a higher premium either.
Good deal? You bet!
Continue reading 20 Part-time Jobs With Health Insurance →
By Marshall Davis
 This month, my wife and I celebrate six years of self-employment. Another way of saying this is we are celebrating six years of having to pay 100% of our health insurance premiums and related costs. Boy, has it been an educational experience and quite the adventure!
The Beginning
In February 2006, my wife and I could take it no more! We were both employed by a large corporation, stuck in cubicles doing jobs we didn’t like. On the surface, it was a great place to work. The pay was decent, there were holiday and annual bonuses to look forward to, and the health benefits were pretty darn good. What our jobs were lacking was any sense of enjoyment or fulfillment, so something had to be done.
After talking about it for a few months, we decided to quit our jobs and enter the entrepreneurial world. Neither of us had previous self-employment experience, but that wasn’t going to stop us from breaking out of the corporate world and jumping into the deep end, and start making a living on our own. This meant that we were kissing those great health care benefits goodbye, and we had to figure something out to replace them.
Continue reading The Health Insurance Adventures of an Entrepreneur →
By Kevin M
 Last week we examined 11 Ways to Cut Your Car Insurance–this week we’ll flip it around and take a look at what we can do to lower our health insurance costs. This one is even bigger—in many households, health insurance costs are second only to housing as the top expense. And many times the difference between housing and health insurance isn’t all that much.
Raise your deductible and co-pays
Raising your deductible and cutting co-payments is the most common and probably the most effective way to cut your health insurance. In fact you can reduce your monthly premium by hundreds of dollars with just this one step.
As an example that I’m pulling from one of my own recent posts on this site:
“…coverage for a family of four living in Georgia (male, 40, female, 39, two children, non-smokers) with a deductible of $2,000 and $35 co-pays for doctor visits will be $863 per month (via Assurant). If the deductible is increased to $10,000 and the $35 doctor visit co-pay is eliminated, the monthly premium falls to $295.”
Continue reading 5 Ways to Cut Your Health Insurance →
Guest Post by Timothy L. Barnes, CLU
This post is Tim’s response to my post of June 17th, The Self-Employed Health Insurance Dilemma. As a Chartered Life Underwriter, Tim wishes to point out that there are affordable health insurance options for the self-employed–and for nearly everyone else–if you know where to look and are prepared to make necessary trade-offs.–Kevin M
In the 1939 classic, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Frank Capra illustrated thatWashingtonD.C. had already become a place where politicians were willing to spread lies and misinformation to serve their own desire to hold onto power.
Nothing has changed in the last 60 years. Politicians have used the media to spread rumors about health insurance that are not entirely true. The only difference is that in 1939 the media was dominated by newspapers. Today, politicians prefer to smile in front of TV cameras.
The people called “journalists” in 1939 are now called TV anchors. Just like the “reporters” in the 1930s, TV news tells stories that will result in more advertising dollars. Newspapers before World War II and TV stations today honestly tells stories but with their own agendas in mind.
Continue reading There IS Affordable Health Insurance IF You Know Where to Look →
By Kevin M
 Health insurance coverage has become a national concern, but no where is the issue quite as close to home as it if for the self-employed. An employee may be concerned with the size of his premium contribution, or with co-pays and deductibles. The self employed business person has those concerns too, and a whole lot more. Like how to pay a premium that’s the size of a house payment but isn’t subsidized by an employer. Or even whether or not he can get any coverage at all.
There’s a lot of debate on health care, but we should expect no true reform and certainly no salvation in the foreseeable future. All of the schemes being devised center on how to maintain funding mechanisms to support the current over-priced system, or to trim “administrative costs” at the fringes. None of them get to the core of the issue, which is that the efforts at greater funding have lead to a system of perpetually higher costs
At some point, the healthcare system will blow up—a la the mortgage meltdown—and then perhaps crisis will break the cost spiral in a way that decades of putting tape and glue on the status quo couldn’t. In the meantime, what do you do to deal with what has become for the self-employed, an almost malicious system?
Continue reading The Self-Employed Health Insurance Dilemma →
By Art Forrest
A few months ago I went to get an oil change and wound up hanging out all morning while they did other things to my car – truth is I know as much about nuclear warheads as I do about the inner workings of my car, but it was the kind of stuff that gets old and has to be replaced when you hit 80,000 miles or so.
It cost me around $500 and, get this, my auto insurance didn’t pay a dime! Are you stunned? Of course not.
My auto insurance, like yours, is there in case I have a wreck. What if I could sell you an auto insurance plan that would allow you to pay a $35 “copay” every time you had to get some work done on the car, and maybe gave you a couple oil changes for free each year? What do you suppose that would cost?
Continue reading Health Savings Accounts (HSA) – Can They Help You? →
By Art Forrest
The recent (and ongoing) health care debate has illustrated how expensive health care is, regardless of whether it’s financed by insurance premiums, higher taxes by the government, or cash out of your pocket. It’s important, then, for both individuals and small & large businesses to choose the most appropriate and cost effective coverage for their needs. Here are a few general comments and things to think about…
Health INSURANCE vs. Health Care FINANCING
Most health insurance plans are health care “financing,” NOT health care “insurance.” Insurance is, by definition, the pooling of risk for an unexpected financial loss–like your house catching fire or a tree falling on your car during a tornado, or, health-wise, having heart surgery for $145,000.
Continue reading How to Buy Health Insurance Without Paying Too Much →
By Kevin M
 Let’s get this point out of the way upfront: everyone should have health insurance. We all know this without anyone emphasizing the point. But with job losses in recent years, companies canceling their coverage, and the cost of independent plans spiraling out of control, millions of people have been forced to drop coverage in favor of just surviving.
If you’re one of them, or think you might be in the near future, here are some suggestions that might help in the event that you absolutely can’t afford a traditional health insurance plan. One or a combination of several may at least partially offset the loss of the typical $1000-plus per month plans that cover all of the things we’re used to.
Continue reading What to do if You Absolutely Can’t Afford Health Insurance →
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General: Any information in regard to money, credit, personal finance, or in regard to any other monetary topic, provided or shared on OutOfYourRut.com is presented for information and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. It is intended to provide general information only and does not constitute personal financial advice in regard to your specific circumstances...MORE-->
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