As your webmaster, I’m glad you are here and I’ll do my best to teach you all you need to know about

How To Buy Private Health Insurance

. In fact, if you visit all the pages in this site and absorb the material, you’ll know as much, if not more, than many agents selling health insurance online or even in person.

But this topic of how to buy individual health insurance, or even how to buy group health insurance, can simply not be covered in one page or post.   Well, correct that: I suppose it could, but that would be very, very long.

I can tell you that as a fact because I have written a book on how to buy health insurance intelligently and it is over 6000 words in length, or in it’s published form (on Amazon and Kindle) over 30 pages of double spaced typing. You actually will not only get all that content here free, but in the posts, you’ll have a chance to make comments, ask questions and the sort.

The first thing we should talk about together is why you should spend time here and learn about HOW, so let’s get right on to that.  As the site progresses, you learn more about the different types including best health insurance for the self employed, the best individual health insurance, low cost health insurance or “cheap health insurance’ (if it actually exists), and then as the site is developed you’l be taught how to get health insurance – - and now NOT to get health insurance.  For students and those between jobs we’ll also teach you about short term health insurance.

In short, this will be a very comprehensive site, and will also allow for some ads by various companies selling insurance so that you can make “real time” comparisons.

Now to the meat of this site: Why this site (and book) was created:

In a word or two: to educate consumers or shoppers on How to Buy Private Health Insurance.  Why? Because most people have never been educated on this subject, and the primary reason is …. for they most part, they did not have to be. Over 70% of the health insurance provided in the country today is provided by employers in the form of Group Insurance, and there has been little need. For one thing, there’s been very few choices to company provided health insurance, and so little need to know much.

Now, in 2012, much of this is changing. Not that employers are giving that many more choices, but simply the fact that employers are either dropping health insurance entirely or converting to reimbursement plans that put the employer on the market to find their own product. Other than for those that are marginally or totally uninsurable on an individual basis, this allows the employer to save costs in the range of 30 to 50%. Most new shoppers, having had it before through the employer, are now seeking low cost health insurance  and hoping it’s available.

In the process however it leaves out those who need maternity coverage (not available on the private market), as well as those with certain pre-existing conditions.

The other factor is that with a current 10% unemployment rate, a very large number of people who previously had company or group health insurance no longer have it and need to find it on their own.

The need for education is here (there).

The other reason for this need is that there’s a whole lot of hungry insurance sales reps working on commissions, and due to a number of factors such as market shrinkage and health care reform, the “pickins” are much slimmer than in many years in the past.  Most of the time they know if they don’t close the sale on the first try, they never will, and as they know more than most consumers know, they take advantage of this, if only to earn a first year condition. The facts are that most consumers will really not know if they have a good or best plan or just a marginal plan. In fact, most plans don’t have claims against them in the first year or so.

The average agent is trained first as a SALESman, and the mantra of “SALES” is “Find out what the buyer wants and give it to them!”… and we’ll add to that “whether it’s in their best interests or not”.

You see, dear reader, most shoppers are NOT aware of their choices, or how to intelligently evaluate the ones they may know about! They really do not know how to buy private health insurance or even define what is the best health insurance.  In fact, there is no absolute “best” as it’s all a term relative to the individual.

If you do not know the choices, chances are you will be sold what you want. Having received what you want (without knowledge of choices), you are happy. That is, until you learn of the choices.

The ideal plan for most people is the Fantasy Plan. It’s one with exceptionally low premium costs, very low deductibles (usually in the range of $100-$500), low co-insurance (maybe Zero percent) and very low co pays for doctor visits.

This may actually seem realistic to those who have had good group plans because their premium is only a small part of what the actual policy costs were and in “good times” when employers were competing for the best employees, they made some really great insurance purchases. So when a new insurance shopper says this is the plan they want, they are working from a valid frame of reference.

Let’s see what this insurance thing is all about and help you get educated.

Group Insurance vs. Private Insurance

As so many people have had Group or Employer Insurance, let’s start our education with what this is really all about. Many people have been educated in the law of supply and demand and “wholesale” is cheaper; the larger quantity of anything that is purchased, the less any one item costs.

Normally, this is quite true, but when it comes to group health insurance, unfortunately we jump into a comparison of not apples vs. apples, but apples vs. grapefruit or something entirely different.

In most terms and in most states, when an employer decides to provide (traditional) group insurance, the first rule is that this insurance must be offered to all legible employees. To be eligible there might be conditions of a certain length of employment, or status of employment such as full time vs. part time, etc.  The policies are generally written without regard to any individual health condition or status such as smoker vs. non-smoker. More recent changes do take into consideration some health issues, but examples of these are that discounts might be offered for those in a smoking cessation or weight loss program, but in general, everyone if offered coverage.

Because in this employee group, there may reside individuals of significant risk to the insurance company, such as diabetics, heart problem persons, etc. the costs are higher, but are passed to the employer.  And it translates on a per employer basis to be higher than a healthy person would pay on the individual market. To the employee, this doesn’t mean much because they are getting their health insurance anywhere from “free” to a percentage share they pay. Employers paying 50% or splitting evenly is not uncommon. The employee thinks they are getting a good deal (and they are, even though they might do better on the outside) and the employer is not footing the entire bill.

Both win and in a full employment society, attracting and keeping good employees is a “must” for a successful company, and it’s well documented the value to an employee of having this benefit.

It may return some day, but in the current (2012) time, just having a job and paycheck… even withOUT paid medical benefits is better than being unemployed, so the company can shed this expense, and in fact, may even be forced to do that just to stay in business in some markets.

If a person is “laid off”, the law allows for them to take their group insurance with them for a period of time under what is known as “COBRA”. The thing is… now the laid off employee usually must pay 100% of the per capita costs. Talk about sticker shock!  But the thinking to those really uneducated is “this is high; I know and read all insurance costs are high; it must be a good deal because this was a company and group and they bought many policies and that was a quantity; they must have really had some good rates and even though it’s expensive, for now, I’ll take it. Probably can’t beat it anyhow. But again: Be careful because the “low cost health insurance” you may find may be relatively low in price, but really high in cost when it comes time to use it.

W R O N G!   And as you read more of this book, you’ll learn why it’s wrong and what to do about it to become an educated health insurance shopper and consumer.

So as we open up this first page, we hope you are getting a good feeling of How to Buy Private Health Insurance