Discount Medical Health Insurance
Reader question:
What’s the deal with those discount health insurance cards?
Martha
Great question.
Discount medical health insurance cards claim to be a great alternative for people who don’t have the money to be able to afford insurance. For that very reason, they may be a little attractive at first, especially to any of the millions of uninsured who have no other option. It would be a great idea to offer low cost health insurance to those who fall through the gap between government aid and medical self sufficiency. However, upon closer look, this discount medical health insurance cards aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be.
The business of discount health cards is growing fast, and many health insurance companies are now offering them as an affordable alternative to full on health insurance plans. What they do is give the card holder discounts on things like doctor appointments, hospital visits, and prescriptions. In some cases, they may be the only option for someone who can’t afford health insurance, and thus it won’t matter that that person is still footing the whole medical bill, just with a slight discount. However, for those who feel the need to avail themselves of this option, an eye should be kept out for the many cards that are fraudulent.
Many sellers of these fraudulent discount cards make it look like the cards are actual health insurance, when they aren’t. They are not regulated, and there’s no way to protect yourself as a consumer if you get one of these cards. Even the more normally legitimate businesses that offer the cards tend to make it look like the savings and discounts that you get from them are much more than they actually are. If you fall for this, you could end up paying more for a card every month than it’s saving you money.
Even if the discounts they promise are technically on the card, a lot of times there will be a bunch of under the table fees that will take those away, so that in the end the only thing that this card you have will be is a piece of useless plastic. It can have the effect of making some people who can barely afford their health insurance plan exchange it for a card, convinced by the companies that it is an actual health insurance plan, only to find themselves paying all of their medical bills.
There are many of these companies out there who are trying to steal your money without actually giving you anything in return. One company has already charged unwilling customers for cards that they never wanted, fraudulently using their credit card numbers.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Cheap medical health insurance? Unlikely.
Reader question:
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.