DO I REALLY NEED HEALTH INSURANCE?

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Any insurance is just a way of protecting yourself or your property against a loss due to certain risks. I think before making a decision about insurance you should carefully weigh all the factors. Today, we’re going to take a look at the question of buying health insurance. With the rising cost of health care, I think one should very carefully consider health insurance as a way to protect you and/or your family from being financially devastated due to an unforeseen medical occurrence. It’s really a pretty easy decision if you take the time to put it on paper so you can visualize the risk. Let’s say, for instance, that you don’t have health insurance and decide not to purchase health insurance. If you’re the type of person that eats well, exercises daily and generally takes very good care of your physical and mental wellbeing then you might think the risk is minimal…especially considering that many health insurance policies will cost you about $200 to $300 per month or more. If you have a lot of money in savings and wouldn’t mind taking a chance on being forced to use it in a medical emergency then perhaps you will never buy health insurance. For most of us though, the risk is simply too great. Just think of what it would cost if you were to develop cancer or some other life threatening disease. How much could it cost if you were involved in a serious automobile accident and required many surgeries and follow up therapy? There are many unexpected medical events that could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more. It is not unheard of for someone to rack up more than a million dollars of treatment over their lifetime if they have a medical problem or emergency. So, for most of us, it’s not a question of whether or not we’re going to purchase health insurance but more a concern about which is the right coverage for us to purchase. That’s where the real work comes in. You have to carefully evaluate many different pieces of information about your lifestyle, the day-to-day risks you are associated with and then make a decision about how much of the financial burden are you willing to accept if you do have a problem. I personally like the idea of having an HSA or health savings account. This type of health insurance policy provides coverage for major expenses once you have paid out of your pocket up to a certain amount per year called the deductible. I personally prefer a $5000 deductible, 100% HSA. This means that if you spend more than $5000 out of your own pocket for healthcare in a given year, the insurance company will pay 100% of covered charges after that. You do have to be careful to make sure you’re buying health insurance from a reputable company and then look at the “fine print” in the policy to ensure you’re getting coverage for the things you expect. Some health insurance companies will include routine exams and immunizations at no cost to you included in the price of their HSA plan. Regardless of the coverage you choose, most of us will opt to purchase some amount of health insurance to mitigate the possibility of an enormous financial loss due to unexpected health related problems.

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