Health Insurance
The ultimate goal for the United States is and should be to have every citizen covered by health insurance. Unfortunately, we keep getting further and further away from that goal as the number of uninsured people keeps rising at a rapid pace.
The majority of people have always been provided health insurance through their employer. Many years ago this insurance was often provided at no cost to the employee. Those days began fading as medical costs continued to rise and companies started sharing the costs with the employees. This was acceptable at the time and the employees were still grateful to have a portion of their policy covered by their employer.
In today’s economy, millions of people have lost their jobs and, with them, they have also lost their health insurance. Since most employees had purchased family coverage through their employer, the entire family is now without insurance. Some states will provide health insurance to children at no cost to the family, but this is not always available and takes time to obtain. Meanwhile, the children, also, have no health insurance.
One of the few options available to today’s unemployed is to continue their employer-sponsored health insurance through COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reduction Act of 1985) that permits the employee to continue participating in the company plan for 18 months. The drawback to this has always been that the premiums are extremely expensive and unemployed people cannot afford them. The current stimulus package has addressed this situation by financing 65% of the COBRA premiums for up to 9 months. This has now become a viable option for the unemployed and will help many continue with their insurance.
If you choose to purchase an individual policy for you and your family, the only ones that will probably be affordable are high-deductible policies. This type of coverage does not pay for your medical expenses until you have met your deductible, which can be very high. Some are $2,000 or $2,500, but others can be as much as $6,500 or $8,000. Of course, the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. This can only work for you, however, if you can afford to cover the deductible expenses when necessary.
Many employers have now stopped providing health insurance for their employees. They are not willing to pay any portion of the premium and some do not even want the hassle of shopping for insurance, deducting premiums, or even providing Anthem health insurance quotes etc. Everyday the need becomes greater for the United State to solve this dilemma. We must find a way to be certain that everyone in our country receives quality health care at an affordable price. This must be the priority of the current administration as the situation is reaching critical levels and can no longer be ignored.