Family health insurance
Let’s face it. What’s going on in the video above isn’t exactly unusual. Kids will be kids, right? And as kids, they’re that much more likely to get them self into some kind of trouble that involves a hospital visit. Kids are walking disasters, which is why no house with children or even teenagers is complete without lots of band aids and disinfectant. And if you have children who are so prone to accidents, it makes getting a family health insurance policy extremely important. Accidents happen a lot, and when you’re already working on raising a family and paying bills, you don’t want to put your future in trouble by being hit with huge medical bills.
There are basically two ways that you can get family health insurance. The cheapest and most popular family health insurance is the kind that you get through your job. Your employer pays part of the premiums, so you and your family pay less per month. With this choice, though, you’ll have fewer options for the kind of plan that you can choose, because it’s controlled by your employer.
The other way is to take out your own family health insurance policy. It will cost more–as of 2002, the average monthly family health insurance premium was $330, but you’ll have a lot more options. Getting to pick your own deductible will make it a lot more comfortable for you financially, but the main perk of this way is that you can choose a doctor that you like.
Don’t just run straight into your family health insurance plan. You should consider your plan choices very carefully. A low deductible doesn’t always mean a great deal, especially when you consider that some of the cheapest family health insurance lacks one of the most important parts of a child’s healthy upbringing–preventive medicine.
You should also consider how your family health insurance plan covers prescriptions. Health insurance is paying for these less and less these days, so you want to be careful not to get a plan that doesn’t pay at all. You might have to end up choosing a co-payment plan.
Finally, the best way to find the best family health insurance plan is to shop around. Get quotes from different health insurance companies and then research further after that. If you’re between jobs, it might be a good idea for you to get temporary health insurance to keep you covered until you can get an employer provided plan.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Traveling health insurance
Reader question:
I live in Kentucky but I’ll be going to England next summer for a student program. Do I need international traveling health insurance while I am there?
Miranda
Absolutely!
Health insurance is always a necessity, in whatever part of the world you are. Outrageous medical bills are among the leading cause of debt in American society, and debt leads to bad credit and poor opportunities, which also leads to more difficulty in getting medical health insurance in the future. It’s especially important to be insured when you’re going to a strange place that you are not familiar with, where you might meet up with unknown dangers. That isn’t to say that England is a scary place, but accidents tend to happen on trips when you are in unfamiliar surroundings. You don’t want to be caught unprepared.
Not only is the lack of familiarity a problem, but getting the care you need once in England could cost you a lot of money, which is why I want to stress the important of international traveling health insurance. If you have medical health insurance within the country, almost all of the time that will not be accepted abroad. Government programs like medicaid and Social Security go the same way. If you go out of the country, you have to have other plans. Consider that a medical evacuation out the foreign country and to the United States often costs upwards of $50,000.
Some medical health insurance policies do carry a international traveling health insurance coverage, but if yours doesn’t, you should think about getting temporary health insurance for the duration of the time you will be out of the country. A lot of medical health insurance plans exist that specifically cover people who are traveling, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
One way that you can get a hold of some international traveling health insurance is through your travel agent. They often can help lead you in the right direction towards what you will need. If you get this kind of insurance, it can bring coverage for things even as expensive as medical evacuation to the U.S.
The key to finding a great international traveling health insurance policy is to look around among the companies that exist and compare quotes. You want to get a good deal, but remember that it is very important to get good coverage while you’re abroad, because while you’re that far from Kentucky, you won’t have anything to fall back on.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.