Reader question:

What does catastrophic health insurance cover?

Lou

Good question.

Just because catastrophic health insurance seems very straight forward, don’t automatically assume that there is only one type of coverage available. In fact, depending on what company you go with and what type of catastrophic health insurance plan that you choose, the coverage varies and is not straight forward at all, so you should look very closely at youtr choices before making a sudden decision.

One company is the Blue Cross Shield in Florida, and it is a Florida health insurance company that has a catastrophic health insurance plan that it calls Essential. The deductible for Essential is around $250, and there is a maximum limit for expenses you pay of ten times that much. Once you have reached that limit, the company starts paying for your medical coverage until you reach the cap of one million dollars. It only covers things that involve your physical health, and hospital expenses such as emergencies and X-rays. Childbirth and drugs and check ups are not on that list.

If you got your catastrophic health insurance plan through Blue Cross Shield, then you could be paying a monthly premium as low as thirty dollars.

Another example is Golden Rule Insurance Company, the lowest deductible of which is $500 and the highest is $5,000. It covers about the same things as the Florida health insurance company, and it also does not cover the same things as they do. For Golden Rule, though, obviously the deductible costs a bit more, but at the same time the lifetime cap is much more, topping out at three million dollars. The catastrophic health insurance plan offered by Golden Rule is called Basic Plan, and it does cover things like MRI and surgery.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.