An amazing twenty percent of adult Americans feel that they cannot afford satisfactory health care according to the latest figures released by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). So, are you one of the 40 million people who are not able to sleep soundly for fear of not being able to afford the cost of treatment in the event of illness or accident? More to the point, have you got to be amongst the 40 million?
The CDC report which was published in 2007 and explored health in the US looked in detail at a number of aspects of health care and discovered that:
1. One out of every 10 people are presently unable to meet the cost of prescription medication.
2. One out of every 10 people postpone medical treatment because of the cost.
3. No fewer than nearly 1 in 3 young people aged between 18 and 24 have no normal source of medical treatment or health insurance.
4. One out of every 10 people aged between 45 and 64 have no normal source of medical treatment and nearly 50 percent of these individuals are suffering from hypertension, major heart conditions or diabetes.
5. Twenty percent of people below the age of 65 are uninsured for at least part of every year, with most having no insurance throughout the 12 month period.
A lot of Americans are lucky enough to get health insurance cover for themselves and their families through schemes run by their employer, although rising costs are forcing a growing number of employers to cut back on their employee health plans or to drop them altogether. There are however also many millions of Americans who are not eligible for cover from their employer and who have to arrange their own health insurance cover. It is this latter group that generally considers that health insurance is simply too expensive.
So are you correct to dismiss the idea of purchasing health insurance out of hand merely because you feel that it costs too much? Health insurance plans come in many different shapes and sizes and, despite the fact that a traditional indemnity fee-for-service plan can be expensive, there are a whole variety of affordable alternatives.
Put simply, health insurance plans fall into roughly two categories comprising disability income policies and medical expense policies. The former is designed to cover your loss of income when you are unable to work as a result of disability while the latter provides you with cover for medical bills as the result of injury or accident.
Each of these forms of health insurance can be written as a single policy or separately and separate plans can further be broken down to provide cover for particular areas such as accident coverage, basic medical expenses, hospital care, major medical expenses and a great deal more.
As if this were not enough, cover can now be provided by not only traditional insurers, but also by various group organizations, companies like Blue Cross and Blue Shield, HMOs and PPOs, each of which can offer a wide range of plans with payment options which suit practically every budget.
If you are frightened off by the belief that you cannot afford to pay for health insurance then think again. You may not be able to afford a fully comprehensive policy covering all eventualities but the odds are that you will be able to find a policy that will give you enough cover to provide you with peace of mind.
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