Reader question:
I’m from Texas and I’m having a hard time finding health insurance in Houston because I’m considered ‘high risk’. What do I do?
Marvin
There’s always something that you can do.
The health insurance business, indeed, the entire insurance business, be it life, health, or auto, functions around formulas that determine the risk of a potential customer. Medical health insurance companies provide health coverage, but they only want to provide to the people who need it least, and want to make it as difficult as possible to use. This is natural to a business, as they would much prefer to have money coming in than out. This makes it difficult for people who are more like to use medical health insurance coverage to get insured, but there are certain fall back plans set in place to help them out.
If you are looking for medical health insurance in Houston, Texas, then you should consider getting involved with the Texas Health Insurance Risk Pool. This, which makes it easier to get high risk health insurance in Houston and the rest of the state, was created as Texas’s response to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It helps out poeple who find that medical health insurance companies turn them down more often than not because they have a condition or history that makes it to where they require more health care.
It works pretty much the same way as much health insurance in Houston, even down, strangely, to the fact that in the first year of your policy you aren’t covered for any pre-existing conditions. It does, however, allow for hospital stays and trips to the emergency room with small deductibles.
It may be the only option for someone who needs health insurance in Houston and can’t get it anywhere else, but that doesn’t mean that it will be cheap. As a matter of fact, with a one thousand dollar deductible, it could end up with a monthly cost of up to five hundred for a 36 year old man, and up to six hundred for a woman of the same age.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
