I am about to get my health insurance in New York. I am just curious, what are the factors that affect a person’s health insurance rate? I just wanna make sure that I do some research so I’ll be ready once I purchased my health insurance.

George

NYC/p>

When shopping for health insurance, your will be asked to fill out a questionnaire. This questionnaire, will give an idea to the health insurance companies on how risky you are to be insured. Following are some of the main factors that health insurance companies take into consideration in setting health insurance premiums:

1. Health History. If you have maintained a good health history, which means you were not in and out of the hospital or no heart attack for the past 10 years, then you don’t have to worry. You won’t expect a high health insurance rate since you pose lower risk to be insured;

2. Weight. If your weight is beyond normal or you have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 39, you will find it difficult to get a health insurance company willing to insure you. So, I would suggest burn those fats first.

3. Smoker. If you do smoke, then quit. We all know smoking causes cancer. But if you can’t quit, then expect a higher health insurance rate for you;

4. Age. If you are older, the higher your health insurance premium would be. The reason is simple, as you aged, the chance of filing health claims is higher as compared to when you are younger; and

5. Job. If you work as a pilot, fireman, or any other hazardous jobs that puts your life at risk, then you would be expecting a higher health insurance rate.

I understand very little about health insurance policies, and I constantly feel in the dark. I do not even have a clear idea of what might not be included, and this worries me. I’ve just always thought that health care insurance policies would save me from exorbitant medical expenses! Can you explain some of the limitations of a health insurance policy? I live in Louisiana.

Joy

New Orleans, LA

If you think that your health care plan includes every medical cost you might have in the future, you’re up for a surprise. Mostly, a very good health insurance plan means that you will only need to pay for a minimal amount, but certainly there are limitations to what is covered. Here are some exclusions to your health care policy.

First of these are pre-existing conditions. Many health insurance companies are reluctant to shoulder the cost of those medical conditions that you already had before you bought the health insurance policy. Insurers generally have an exclusion period of about 6 months; The state of Louisiana allows this period to be as long as one year. This means you cannot get coverage for pre-existing conditions within the first 6 or 12 months, depending on your contract.

Another is drug abuse. This exclusion assumes that you have inflicted the problem upon yourself. So, in the same way, attempts at committing suicide are excluded. So is alcoholism.

Mental illness–especially if it has already manifested before the start of your contract– will not be covered, as well. So, your psychiatric care will not be paid for by the health insurance company. The same goes for any treatment for learning and behavioral problems.

Cosmetic surgery is not vital to life or living, so looking more beautiful is something you will have to spend for on your own. Most medical procedures considered to be preventive are part of the exclusions, too. So are dental and eye care.

Of course, the best advice I could give is for you to make sure that you read your contract with any insurer very carefully and ask your health insurance company the questions that boggle you.

Tags: Health Care, health insurance, insurance

I’m about to start my own business. What do I need to know about health insurance?

Abigail

Great question.

Having self employed health insurance is more important than even having health insurance while you are employed by a company. Consider the fact that all of your health insurance is funded by yourself, and if you don’t have it, should something happen to you that puts you in the hospital for a few days, you’ll be out of work. And if you’re self employed, you don’t get paid for things like sick days and vacation time, so not only will you have a huge hospital bill, but you will also be out several days of work with no recompense.

Getting health insurance if you are self employed is financially responsible even if nothing happens to you medically while you have it. The self employed are allowed to claim their health insurance costs on their tax returns as a business expense. For self employed people looking for a good health insurance plan, there are health savings account, which are tailored specifically for the self employed.

If you intend to be self employed, you need to find out what you will do about health insurance before leaving the job you’re at now. Looking for health insurance if you happen to have a pre existing condition, or your family does, can be difficult, and you might have to end up getting insured through your state’s high risk pool, which can be costly.

You might want to save costs and guard your personal information by not employing a health insurance broker. This is understandable, but if you choose to go this route, you will need to put much more effort and research into your search. You will need to understand the different terms and policy speak that come along with health insurance plans so that you can be sure that the plan will cover you and your family. Or you could choose to go with a broker. They cost, but they also know more about you, although they tend to be pushy.

As mentioned before, a good plan for the self employed is a health savings account. These are trusts with a bank or credit union which are tax exempt and are paid into by you, in the form of cash. In order to work, they have to come side by side with a health insurance plan with a high deductible. It gives you greater coverage than your average plan.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

I’m just been accepted as a student at Columbia University in New York, and I heard that you have to have health insurance to go there. Is that true?

Albert

Yep.

You could say that Columbia is looking out for its students by requiring every student who attends classes there full time to be covered by a decent health insurance plan. It’s both trying to make sure that it is not responsible for any student accidents and to make sure that its students are provided with proper health care. It can seem like a huge burden for many students to buy expensive health insurance after many are already putting forty thousand dollars a year into Colombia just for tuition and their dorm. It’s important as a student at CU, then, to compare health insurance quotes and determine which plan is best and cheapest for you.

Like most universities, Columbia University has clinicians on the campus who can help treat you if you fall ill or get injured and can prescribe you medication. However, there are many emergency situations that these clinicians are not qualified to deal with, and Columbia wants its students to be able to go get good health care from a hospital at these times.

Columbia doesn’t just leave its students hanging out to dry and having to find health insurance coverage on their own or else. Rather, it offers a program called the Student Medical Insurance Plan with which students can register for basic or comprehensive coverage. Whenever you register for classes full time at this school, your name is immediatly enrolled in this plan. If you already have health insurance and those don’t want to use the Columbia health insurance plan, then you can submit a waiver.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

It’s old news that medical health insurance for many people really does sucks, as they talk about in this video I found on YouTube. It’s kind of funny, kind of weird (especially the constant shot of that guy wearing a mask, not sure why that’s there), but it’s also revealing of the way many Americans feel about their medical health insurance coverage. Many people who work for large companies get great deals on group health insurance, and people who have enough money can buy plenty of good health insurance for themselves.

One of the big issues about medical health insurance, other than why so many people either don’t have it or don’t have enough of it, is about elective health care. This doesn’t always have to do with health care necessarily, and often involves elective procedures such as botox, lasik surgery, and breast augmentation. It’s up for debate about whether other people covered by a health insurance company should be made to suffer higher payments because of someone doing something that isn’t necessary for their health. However, as you can see in the video where they talk about breast reduction, sometimes it’s hard to draw the line between what is elective surgery and what is really needed.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Are medical health insurance prices ever going to go down?

Amber

Probably not.

The system kind of works against itself. Medical care costs a lot, and people need medical health insurance companies to help them pay for it. At the same time, though, medical health insurance drives up medical bill costs, and it just keeps on chasing itself around in a circle. Circles don’t end, so the likelihood that medical health insurance or health care costs will go down anytime in the near future short of a miracle is very unlikely.

The most important thing to do when looking for a medical health insurance plan is to shop around and compare quotes from different companies. This can often be done on the internet, where quote comparison sites save you a lot of time and money by comparing quotes from several different companies.

Still, once you get a quote and take out a medical health insurance policy, don’t expect that you will be paying the same forever. Insurance companies do everything they can to charge more money, and in many states its very easy to increase prices without any pre-approval. Often, a health insurance company can just send in a request to increase rates and they can immediately start charging those increased rates without an answer, and can only be stopped if they are reviewed and it’s decided that they charge too much.

Your rates could go up even if you don’t make any health insurance claims and are part of a group health insurance plan. The reason this could happen is that somebody else in your group may be making health insurance plans, and then the rates will raise for everybody, no matter in what good health you are. Rates in group health insurance are decided by the group’s total average history, not your individual claim history.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

What is temporary health insurance?

Annie

I’ll tell you.

Short term health insurance is a great medical health insurance option for people who are on the road in life but haven’t yet arrived. You may be between jobs, or not have a job at all, or it’s possibly that you are temporarily working for a company that does not provide its employees with health insurance coverage. If any of these situations apply to you, then you might want to consider getting temporary health insurance, which is often one of the cheapest medical health insurance options around.

Sixteen million people in the United States take out a new medical health insurance policy every year, and if you’re going to be one of them this year pay attention. It is possible to get cheap medical health insurance, and you don’t have to get catastrophic health insurance to do it. Not everybody has to pay terrible, high rates to get their medical care covered.

Most of these short-term health insurance plans come with up to two million dollars of coverage, and they are intended for people who are already in good health and don’t have any pre-existing conditions. This type of coverage is good for using to go to your check ups so that you don’t develop anything, or to cover any problems that you may develop during the coverage period.

There are many limits to these temporary health insurance plans, so before you settle on one you should make sure that you understand your plan’s limits and they are okay with you. If that is the case, it is also important to understand that short term health insurance really is very short term. For the most part, policies are taken out month by month and can last up to twelve months, although some companies offer policies that extend to thirty six months.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

I need to get a good health insurance plan in Houston, Texas. Can you tell me about health insurance in that area?

Glen

Sure.

Health insurance in Houston, Texas is a lot like medical health insurance anywhere else in the country. The main difference is that the state of Texas has special patient protection laws that make getting medical health insurance in Houston a different experience from everywhere else.

• Patient protection laws.

This is one of the things that makes health insurance in Houston special. Texas puts a lot of support behind its patient protection laws, so being a patient in that state is a lot safer than in most. These laws were put in place to protect Texas patients from having Houston health insurance companies take advantage of them by weaseling out of providing coverage and over charging. The laws protect a Texan’s ability to get cheap health insurance.

For things like HMOs, the patient protection laws really kick in. They provide Houston patients with the ability to access specialized prescription drugs as well as other things that health insurance are less willing to cover, such as check ups (at least annual) by the doctor when you aren’t sick, special treatments, and preventive medicine. Patient protection laws in Texas prevent corruption in the industry as well. They keep HMOs from healing prevent patients from receiving the help they need by giving doctors rewards for refusing to provide certain care to their patients.

Just because they have these patient protection laws, though, doesn’t mean HMOs and other health insurance in Houston, Texas are always on the straight and narrow path. HMOs are more guilty than most. According to a report by the Office of Public Insurance Counsel in Texas, despite all of the efforts to set them straight, health insurance in Houston and the rest of Texas provided by companies and HMOs don’t live up to the standards set by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Why does it take an arm and a leg to find good health insurance coverage? This guy in Knoxville TN made this pretty funny video about health insurance…click the large arrow button in the middle of the image below to watch the video.