Reader question:
I can’t pay for an individual medical health insurance plan! What do I do?
Greg
I’ll help you.
There are a lot of reasons that somebody might not be able to afford individual medical health insurance coverage. Sometimes, if you are a student in college, you might have recently been dropped from your parents’ health insurance plan and, busy with school and having only a part time job, might find it difficult to pay for your own. If you find yourself in this situation you should see what kind of deals your college has to offer when it comes to health insurance.
Even if you aren’t a student, there is something there to help you. A lot of federal programs exist that can either provide someone with medical health insurance or help them to get it, so long as you are eligible.
- Medicaid. This is for people who have a low income and are pregnant, or for their children. It does not cover the adult, though, unless they are pregnant, so if you have children but are also looking for health insurance for yourself, this won’t provide all that you need.
- Medicare. This is most often used for people who are sixty five and up and people who have disabilities that make it difficult for them to get work and provide for their own medical health insurance. It also provides for people who are in the later stages of renal disease.
- Children’s Health Insurance Program. This covers the gap between Medicaid and actually being able to afford health insurance on your own. You have to make a very low income to qualify for Medicaid, and if you make more than the eligibility mark but still can’t handle the high medical health insurance costs, CHIP can help. Again, though, it only provides for children.
A lot of states have their own plans that help children with parents who can’t afford medical health insurance get insured. This doesn’t help the parent, but there are some states that do extend this coverage to insure the parent of said children as well, although not very many states do this.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.