Does Everyone In Your Family Need Health Insurance

Some form of health insurance has been in existence since the 1930s

. This original form of insurance was usually provided by employers as a benefit to their employees. This was pretty expensive. Even in those days, if you did not have a job that provided some type of health insurance coverage, you probably had no other option to help pay for medical expenses, should they arise.

These original forms of insurance were called indemnity plans. In some cases, they were simply referred to as an 80/20 plan. The insurance company would pay 80%, and of course the patient was responsible for the remaining 20%. However, these plans usually only covered what was considered to be catastrophic occurrences. Regular doctor visits or any type of preventive medicine was never included in these early plans.

This may sound like an extraordinary amount of money. However, decades ago, even a lengthy hospital stay which may have included surgery and private care nursing may only have been about $500.

Over the years insurance premiums have skyrocketed to the point that even large international corporations are finding it difficult to provide the level of insurance they had in previous years. Smaller employers with 10 to 20 employees now find it almost impossible to even consider offering any type of health insurance benefits to their staff. Group health insurance policies, of available to any employer, sometimes are offered as the benefit. However, the employees are responsible for paying the entire premium. For instance, an entire family may need to pay over $100 a month for what could be considered only basic care.

A new type of coverage has come on the market over the past decade or so, and in the past few years as health insurance skyrocketed many people are finding this alternative very affordable and very effective. This coverage is usually called a health discount plan. Unlike an insurance plan that provides the opportunity for the doctor to receive a payment from the patient and a payment from the insurance company, the discount plans only provide a discounted payment from the patient for the services or office visits.

These plans are very affordable, there are no lengthy contracts, and they cover everything, including office visits, preventive care, and in many cases, you can even have cosmetic surgery and still receive a very large discount on the surgery.

Even people who are covered by an insurance program frequently buy one of these discount plans and use it in addition and to their regular insurance. In situations such as elective surgery or even experimental procedures that insurance companies essentially refused to pay for, many of these discount plans really come in handy.

These discount plans are similar to a PPO plan, where a patient can go to any doctor, for any specialty, for any reason. As long as the doctor is a member of the same discount plan as the patient. The patient can change doctors at any time, or use any doctor in any specialty at any time.

by: The Health Insurance Group.

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