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Cheap Health Insurance Can Save Your Budget
Most people believe that health insurance has to be expensive to be good. However, cheap health insurance is often better than some of the more expensive policies are. The main reason that you pay more for a policy is not necessarily the coverage it offers, although that does play a part in the cost of the health insurance, but the experience the company has in your area with claims.
When you look for cheap health insurance, you need to identify your needs first. Do you frequently visit the doctor or normally have few claims through the year? Are you in good health or do you have a chronic or reoccurring condition? Can you afford to pay a thousand or more toward health claims but want to avoid a big bank-busting claim? The answers to these questions can help you locate the best health insurance for your situation. Once you identify the type of policy, you can look for cheap health insurance. Are your physicians or any local physicians on the list of caretakers for the managed care plan?
If you frequently visit the doctor and normally have many different claims through the year, you’ll find the co-pay on managed care plans often mounts to a larger bill at the end of the year, that amount can mount up to a sizable bill. Go through your previous year’s bills and see how many doctor and hospital visits you had. Multiply that number times the co-pays on managed care. If a plan has a smaller deductible plus co-insurance and costs less, you might want to consider traditional health care insurance. Considering all factors in out of pocket costs are important when you’re looking for cheap health insurance.
If you’re in good health, you have more opportunities for cheap health insurance than someone with a chronic health condition does. One way to save money is to use a HDHP, high deductible health policy and a HSA, health savings account. Instead of paying the extra premiums for a lower deductible policy, you open the health savings account and put in your extra money. The money is tax-deductible for the HSA grows tax-free and as long as you use it for health related expenses, you never pay tax on the growth.
Unlike the FSA, flexible spending account, you don’t have to use the money or lose it in an HSA. If you don’t use it, it transfers to the following year and is available for your use then. You can pass the money on to heirs when you die. Some people seldom meet their deductible and end up paying premium for a policy the simply acted as protection, which is its purpose. However, with a health savings account and a high deductible, they can accumulate the savings on premium, and if they ever have a high claim, use the money for the deductible on their policy. If they have no claim, it can grow to a tidy savings that pays for medication, dental, eyeglasses or over the counter drugs.
While most managed care plans are more inexpensive than traditional plans, you can find cheap health insurance by comparing rates and understanding your needs. If a managed care plan doesn’t offer doctors in your area, the plan isn’t cheap after all. If you don’t use the plan at all during the year, the cheapest route is to use an HSA and high deductible insurance. You have to find the plan that works best for your situation in order to find cheap health insurance.