Cover the Uninsured Week
According to the site: Cover the Uninsured Week.Org, May 10-16 is “Cover the Uninsured Week,” a weeklong series of national and local activities that is part of a year-round, nonpartisan effort in support of securing health care coverage for every man, woman and child in the United States.
The site is devoted to organizing and distributing information related to the weeklong event, with Fact Sheets, data on the uninsured in America, suggestions for events you can plan, etc. It also has a lot of information for individuals who need insurance, including guides to finding insurance in your own state no matter what your situation, information on free or low-cost insurance for your kids, information on community health centers, guides to the legal protections you may have under the law in all 50 states, and more. I took a look at some of the guides, they are definitely worth a read if you need insurance.
One thing I’ve found that the site doesn’t seem to have is a list of companies that offer major medical coverage or primary care coverage for those that are not getting insurance through their jobs, but can afford some coverage if it is not too expensive.
Back when I was self-employed, I used to purchase major medical coverage through Blue Cross, but that didn’t include primary care coverage. Even back then I recall it cost around 88.00/month for myself and covered 80% of major medical expenses, but not doctor visits – at least until a certain deductible was reached, which I can’t remember now.
So I tried a few online insurance sites, to see what the rates are like now.
I got rates from about 44.00/month for a 1-6 month short term policy with major medical coverage only, to almost 300/month for major medical plus doctor visits and very low deductibles.
Most were around $100.00 – $180/month with deductibles ranging from $5000 to $1000.00. Adjusting the deductible or copay seems to be the area which results in the best deals – if you are mostly worried about catastrophic coverage (more than $5000.00), you can get reasonable prices. I was surprised to see that Blue Cross/Anthem seems to have pretty good plans for around a total cost of about 1700/year (140.00/year).
A starting point for your research:
Google search for health insurance plans
Some major health Insurance providers – I found these may have quotes as good or better than the comparison shopping sites:
Blue Cross (Anthem)
Humana-One
Aetna
A directory of health plans available by state
Comparison shopping sites:
ehealthinsurance.com
insure.com
HealthInsurance.com
InsuranceQuotesmarket.com
Consumer guides on getting and keeping health insurance in each state are located here
An interesting article on the uninsured generation and some tips on where to go when you need medical services in New York:
No insurance? Here’s where to go when…