People throughout the country continue to face a variety of challenges specific to health insurance. While some people are optimistic that the new healthcare reform passed under President Obama will help, others are unsure. The concern of finding affordable health insurance continues to be a serious issue and trying to get quality medical care without insurance is extremely difficult and the cost outrageous. For this reason, millions of individuals still go through life without any protection at all. Although by law, a person cannot be refused treatment at a hospital, any in-depth testing or long-term care would be limited.
With health insurance still being high, many people are forced to do without. This means today, millions of people in this country still find it extremely hard to find not only affordable health insurance but also good coverage. In fact, instead of the situation getting better, it seems to be declining. The reasons for this problem are varied so we provided a little insight below.
Small Businesses
For a small company to offer employees decent coverage, the cost would be outrageously high. Typically, small businesses pay higher administrative fees than large companies do and risk shared or pooled by larger businesses is simply not an option. Therefore, employees could pay a high insurance premium or access less coverage. Of course, another option that far too many people choose is doing without.
Sadly, with the rising cost of health insurance benefits, most small companies simply cannot afford the premiums. As a result, the number of small businesses unable to offer health insurance at all is a growing trend. In fact, latest statistics show that just 49% of companies with 10 employees or less offer health insurance of any kind. For those that do offer health insurance, premiums are often too expensive to afford. For the uninsured and underinsured population, small business owners and employees account for the largest share.
Individuals
Trying to find good, individual health insurance at an affordable price is one of the biggest challenges that people in this country face. On a positive note, some states are “guaranteed issue states”, which means health insurance must be offered, even if a preexisting condition is a part of the equation. Some states prohibit insurance companies from charging a higher insurance premium for someone with a preexisting condition, thereby making health insurance affordable but only a few states have this mandate.
Pre-existing Conditions
For anyone with a pre-existing condition, finding affordable health insurance is nearly impossible. In this case, companies commonly provide health insurance only to healthy employees and not those with preexisting conditions as a way of cutting operational costs, which is understandable. However, this puts the burden of finding health insurance on the shoulders of the employee with a preexisting condition. Insurance companies realize that in this situation, more than likely they would pay out a significant amount of money in claims so to help recoup some of those expenses, premiums are high.
Retirees
Only 10% of businesses with 25 employees or less offer retiree health insurance and for businesses with 26 to 100 employees, insurance opportunities are not much better with just 25% providing coverage. However, for companies with 100 plus employees, more than 50% have some type of insurance coverage available.
For an employee age 65 and older, Medicare would cover 80% of healthcare expenses, but for employees retiring under the age of 65, this option is not available. Since most companies cannot justify the high cost of health insurance for retirees under the age of 65, coverage is simply not offered and when it is, premiums are so high that no one could afford to pay. Even if this person were to find health insurance through a private insurer, with anticipation of paying out large sums of claims being high, premiums are often out of reach.
Treatments and Equipment
Finally, the rising cost of health insurance also relates to innovative treatments and advanced equipment used for both diagnosis and treatment issues. After all, the cost of modern technology and procedures has to be recouped somehow so the obvious solution would be to increase the cost of health insurance.
The bottom line is that finding affordable health insurance is a serious issue that has left millions of people fending for themselves instead of getting proper care. While this sounds very discouraging and although challenges in finding affordable health insurance remain an issue, it is important to know that affordable insurance for quality healthcare is available. The key to finding the right type of insurance coverage and for a premium you can afford comes down to knowing where to look.
