Health Insurance: Is It Necessary?

Health Insurance in America is in a crisis!  And while our politicians argue about the best ways to fix it, 47 million Americans remain without health insurance.  If you are one of these millions of Americans without health insurance, I urge you to find a way to obtain health insurance for you and your family.

I know health insurance is expensive, but being without health insurance can be even more expensive.  Medical expenses are generally considered to be the leading cause of personal bankruptcies in the United States, and with rising medical costs, and rising numbers of uninsured Americans, this statistic is likely to get worse.  One of the most important steps you can take to protect you and your family’s physical health and financial health is to have health insurance.

If group health insurance isn’t provided by your employer, consider purchasing individual coverage for you and your family.  If you are concerned about the cost of health insurance, consider a high deductible plan, which can be relatively inexpensive while still protecting you from catastrophic health care expenses.

One of the primary benefits of having health insurance is that you get the benefit of discounted health care costs from doctors and hospitals.  One of the dirty tricks of the health care industry is that they charge dramatically higher fees to patients without health insurance than they charge patients who have health insurance.  Even if your health insurance plan is a “high deductible” plan, you still get the benefit of the discounted fees that your insurance company has negotiated with doctors and hospitals.

Let me give you a real life example from personal experience.  A couple of years ago, my wife had a one-night stay in the hospital.  The hospital bill for this one-night stay was $18,142.  However, because we had health insurance, the hospital reduced the charges to $2,968 because of the contract that existed between the hospital and our insurance company. 

If we had not had health insurance, we would have had to pay the full $18,142.  But because we had health insurance, we received the benefit of the contract between the hospital and the insurance company, saving us over $15,000.  As this example shows, having health insurance, even high deductible health insurance, can help you avoid catastrophic health care expenses.

The internet makes it easy to research and buy health insurance online. The key is to request several online health insurance quotes and compare the policies and the costs, so you can be sure you’re getting the right health insurance to meet your needs.

Thank you for visiting our site and reading this article on health insurance. We appreciate your interest and invite you to read other articles on our site.