Jun 02 2010
Recently, a bill was signed in Florida that would help establish the creation of a cheap health care insurance program for Florida residents.
Regrettably, very few people stopped to take a close look at what was actually being proposed. Permit me to enlighten you on some of the more important aspects of the proposed plan.
First of all, it is not a mandated health care insurance plan. In other words, an insurance carrier would have to decideif they even want to create a plan to sell. That’s NOT A PLAN THAT THE STATE OF FLORIDA IS PROVIDING. Please understand that Florida is in the midst of an extreme budget crunch and is not spending a single dime on this plan. Governor Crist has made that very clear. The cooperation of the health care insurance industry will be required to make this work. As of now, there are no programs available.
Second, this is not a major medical plan. If you have a medical crisis and this is your only health care insurance, you are in many trouble. It is a minimal plan with several medical provider visits, a physical, perhaps some generic prescription coverage (the drugs you already get in Wal-Mart for $4) and several other benefits. Surely, none of you ever thought that you would get a complete major medical plan for $150 a month.
Next, the plan is for someone who has had no health care insurance for six months. This means that in their infinite wisdom, Florida’s representatives decided that if you lose your job and cannot afford your COBRA insurance, they want you to be without any health care insurance at all for at least six months. We have a real brain trust in Tallahassee do not we.
Now, you are really going to love this. The programs are going to sell for about $150 (projected cost but who knows) and give you the most minimal of benefits. But that’s the cost for an individual. A family will be much more. As a matter of fact, if you have a healthy family, a traditional major medical plan with real benefits might be less expensive.
For example, at FLQUOTE a Florida Medical Insurance Web site a 40 year old male in Pasco County can get an excellent PPO plan for about $130 a month. We are talking about a complete multi-million dollar, major medical plan. Not a minimal plan.
<h3>Who will this plan help?</h3>
I’m still trying to figure that out. That’s supposed to help those of you who cannot get health care insurance. But, it’ll not pay for your expensive name brand prescriptions; it’ll not cover extensive hospitalization or expensive testing procedures. For those of you who think that dental coverage is part of health care insurance – it is not. It won’t cover any dental or vision costs .
If you are poor, you are much better off on Medicaid. If you are medically qualified, you’ll get far more coverage for your money with a traditional health care insurance plan.
Have politicians created a created a, half-way measure to pander to the voters? Is it “better than nothing”? If you are paying $1,800 a year for several office visits, you have to wonder if it is even worth it.
If you are holding your breath for government sponsored health care insurance, chances are you’ll turn blue and collapse first.
You do have alternatives. There are decent cheap programs available to Florida residents. There are also guaranteed issue programs with no medical questions that are similar to the programs being proposed. You are able to find guaranteed issue health care insurance programs online.
Clearly, it’ll be interesting to see if this new proposal yields any positive change or does it become an exercise in futility.