If you have spent any time reading the newspapers or watching the news on TV recently, you know that the cost of good health care insurance continues to rise. In these tough economic times, some individuals are even electing to take their chances and opting out of participation in their company’s health care insurance group program simply because their portion cuts too far into their paycheck.
While it is understandable to want to cut expenses, health care insurance coverage isn’t the place to cut. Yes it is an expense but it is a necessary expense that could save you from total financial ruin if something should happen to you or one of the individuals in your family.
But my family is very healthy, you say? That’s true, but what about an accident? Healthy individuals get into accidents just as frequently as unhealthy people, and there’s no way to predict when an accident will happen, which is why it is called an accident. You could catch a bug from somebody on your bowling team or at the office, you could fall off your ladder while cleaning the eves, an uninsured motorist could run into your car. There are so a lot of different things that could happen that could land you in the hospital that it doesn’t even make sense to try to list them all. And none of them would be your fault, and they could still all happen to you, regardless of how healthy you are.
On average, an employer’s family health care insurance program is now costing that employer more than $12000 per year, which is more than $1000 per month. That’s just the employer’s portion, on average. That same average says that the employee’s portion for family coverage is more than $3300 per year. That’s just about twice as much as what staff members paid for their health care insurance portion less than ten years ago. And companies who are trying every trick in the book to cut expenses and become more profitable are well aware of these figures, are a lot of are cutting corners on the health care insurance programs and options being offered to employees, and in a lot of cases are requiring staff members to go to programs with a much higher deductible or much higher employee contribution.
One of the reasons cited for the rapid increase in the cost of health care insurance is to cover the medical malpractice suits and jury awards that are being done all the time. But others see this reason as pure baloney, since malpractice suits should be covered by the high cost of malpractice insurance that medical providers and hospitals are necessary to carry, so exactly how and why does this raise the cost of decent health care insurance ? That answer isn’t as readily forthcoming.
With health care insurance premiums rising more than three times as fast as wages are raising, it is no wonder that a lot of staff members are doing their own thing and opting out of business group health care insurance programs. In a lot of cases, this is a financially sound decision, since you can tailor your own health care insurance program to the specific needs of you and your family, and frequently get more and better coverage than what the limited options provide from your employer.
It is definitely worth your time and effort to find out exactly what you are paying via your employer’s programs for health care insurance, and then go out and investigate what an equivalent or even a better plan would cost you if you got it on your own. Be certain you have the option of non-participation in your employer’s plan, but then do the math and you may be surprised at how much more cost effective your own health care insurance program can be. You already know that you cannot afford to be without one.
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