Health Insurance: Consequences of Cutting Corners

Adequate coverage is a must no matter your age

from daveramsey.com on 28 Aug 2009

Think you don't need health insurance? Think again!

Of course we're all looking to save money wherever we can. But one area you don't need to skimp on is health insurance. One of the most listed reasons for bankruptcy is unpaid medical bills.

There are heard hundreds of horror stories about young, single people who choose not to get health insurance because they think they're healthy. Well, you may be healthy at the moment, but you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow! Health problems and accidents seem to happen when you least expect it, always at the worst possible time. Now the single person, who thought he/she was healthy and didn't need insurance, is between a rock and a hard place. So what happens? He/she usually ends up charging the medical bills on a credit card. Within just a few weeks, a once healthy person is worrying about thousands of dollars of debt.

Such situations are even sadder when the same mistake is made by a family. The family ends up having to sell their home. Husband and wife fight about money. The husband works 90 hours a week and never sees his kids. The family slowly starts to fall apart. It's an ugly situation that happens every day.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Having a good health insurance plan could be the one thing that keeps you and your family from falling into a downward spiral of debt.

Dave recommends a health insurance agent you can trust who lives in your area. Find one now.

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I hate the way that health insurance is killing my family. We pay over $1,000 per month for really bad coverage with $10,000 per person deductibles. This is for 3 people. With the economy the way it is, we stand to loose everything we worked so hard for, living very frugally our whole marriage. It's so disappointing that illegals and people who don't work have better health care than my family. What can we do??? Oh, and I have a pre-existing, so I'm pretty much stuck. If I get a job and am laid off, I may be uninsurable. It just stinks!
Deb J. December 01 2009 4:42 PM

Fortunately, I have health insurance via my husband's employer. But for those who aren't so fortunate to have access to employer based coverage because their employer doesn't offer it or the premiums are too high, or unable to obtain individual coverage due to preexisting condition and/or unaffordable premiums what are they to do? An HSA is a good thing to have, however a serious illness or accident could quickly wipe out the savings. We as a nation atleast need a public option to compete with private health insurance. Ideally, we would have single payer, however a public option would be a step in the right direction.
Rebecca Carroll November 17 2009 9:14 PM

Perhaps we're the exception rather than the rule, but we've always carried health insurance and it sure didn't benefit us much when we needed it. After my husband suffered extreme complications after open heart surgery, (which left him permanently disabled) our medical debt exceeded $500.000 after insurance paid their pittance. We then endured almost a year without any income so that I could pay our employees in order to keep my husband's small business open. I filled out numerous H-cap forms and it was actually our debt that got us approved for financial hardship relief -most of it was written off. We have been struggling hard for nearly 6 years now to pay off the debt, but how do we protect ourselves then? Kris
Kris Folz November 03 2009 8:22 PM