What is Health Insurance?
Health insurance comes in two main forms: group health coverage and individual health coverage.
Group health coverage is when your employer or organization offers health benefits to employees. This way, you can join their company and receive health care as part of your employment contract.
Some examples of this are through an HMO (health maintenance organization) or PPO (pre-paid plan with a network doctor). You will usually have to pay extra money for out-of-network services, but they may be more affordable than going without coverage completely.
Individual health coverage is also referred to as personal healthcare coverage or medical insurance. An individual policy covers you as a person – not just someone who works for a company. It can either be short term or long term, active or inactive.
Active policies require you to make a monthly payment or invest enough in the policy to cover your expected costs. A lot of people only purchase limited coverage due to price.
It was important to know what types of health insurance exist so that you can choose which one is right for you. Now let’s discuss how it works and it’s importance today!
Importance of Health Insurance
As we have seen, health insurance not only helps you to address medical bills directly, but it also provides some degree of financial protection in case something happens with your policy.
Furthermore, research shows that people who are covered by health insurance are more likely to visit doctors and get necessary tests and treatments than those who do not have coverage. This can help prevent serious illness or even death.
In fact, one study determined that an individual’s chance of dying within a year after having a heart attack was half a month if they were enrolled in a Medicare plan compared to individuals without such cover.
Another study found that uninsured patients were four times as likely to forgo needed care because of costcompared to insured patients.
Given all this, I think it is clear why having adequate health insurance is important. It gives you access to healthcare that you need and it may keep you from going bankrupt due to unexpected costs.
How Health Insurance Works?
As we mentioned before, health insurance comes in two main forms: coverage you get from your employer and individual policies that you can purchase yourself.
Under most employers’ healthcare plans, their employees are given access to care free of charge at participating hospitals and doctor’s offices within their network. This structure works well for companies because they do not have to pay out of pocket for medical services for their workers or spend money educating patients on best practices, etc.
For individuals, there are many different types of policy formats. Some cover only you while others offer additional benefits such as family coverage. And some befit people who enjoy going to the doctor frequently, by offering large annual fees paid in advance.
But no matter what type of policy person you are, one thing everyone needs health insurance for is when something happens.
When this occurs, health insurers step in to fill the void left by our personal finances. They take over paying for doctors visits, prescriptions, and overall health care so people don’t have to!
Why Should I Get Health Insurance?
As we mentioned before, health insurance not only helps you to get care fast, but it also helps you to feel more comfortable going to the doctor.
It can even help you live longer due to early detection or treatment of diseases. All of this makes sense, right?
Fortunately, there are many ways to find cheap health insurance. It is not impossible!
We also think it’s important to recognize just how expensive good health care is. Many people may mistakenly assume that because they don’t perceive their heart condition as severe that it doesn’t need to be paid for very carefully.
But unfortunately, that assumption is wrong. Just like any other part of your body, serious conditions such as a heart attack require very careful monitoring and management costs.
Can I Afford Health Insurance?
Even though health insurance has gotten more expensive in recent years, there are ways to know if you can afford your current level of coverage. You can determine this by looking at both your monthly income and daily expenses.
If you make less than $10,000 per year (or what most people consider “middle class”) then you can probably get by with the average one-year deductible plan that covers almost everything. If you make closer to $30,000, you can look into higher premium plans with lower deductibles.
By having only small yearly deducts you will be paying much smaller sums for medical bills which reduce the overall cost of care. These types of policies have high premiums, however, so you would need to do some research to see if they are affordable for you.
Overall, staying within budget is an excellent way to ensure your financial well-being. It is also important to recognize that even though health insurance is becoming more expensive, good health benefits are still possible without it!
Conclusion
Being uninsured can have very serious consequences for you. It is important to understand what health insurance is and how it works.
Having adequate coverage through a good source of healthcare will keep you out of the doctor’s office and bankruptcy. Keep in mind that cost does not necessarily determine whether or not you have enough coverage- only whether you have enough service from your plan.
This article has explained some basic terms used when talking about health insurance, as well as why having coverage is so essential.