Health Insurance 101 for Individuals and FamiliesWritten by Michael Ertel
The changing healthcare and health insurance landscape in United States has resulted in more individuals and families purchasing health insurance coverage on their own. Rather than touch on number of reasons why this is case, I would like to provide individuals and families finding themselves in this position with ten basic ideas to assist them with getting best health insurance policy for their specific situation. Below is a combination of ten questions and suggestions that will provide tools necessary to get a medical insurance policy that will best work for you and your family. 1)What are your typical health and medical care expenses in a calendar year? Most people are surprised when they go through this exercise to learn that they would be financially better off in most years to purchase a high deductible health insurance plan and use premium savings to directly offset heath care expenses throughout year. 2)How long do you anticipate needing health insurance coverage? For example, many companies sell temporary policies that can be put in force for 1-6 months and they are relatively inexpensive. If you are in between jobs or in a waiting period for employer coverage, this may be your best option. 3)What is your budget? If your budget is tight, having a $1000, $2500 or even $5000 deductible is better than having no coverage at all. The ability of doctors and hospitals to save and prolong life in United States is in many cases extraordinary. However, their treatment is not free and going without health insurance coverage can in some cases result in you and/or your family losing an entire life’s worth of savings and assets. 4)Be careful to choose a plan that covers “big stuff”. It is nice to have a policy that covers items such as: physician office visits, routine physicals, outpatient testing, and blood work. However, it is essential to have coverage for major services such as cancer treatment, transplants, critical illness, traumatic accidents, and infectious diseases. Find out lifetime maximum amount as well as if policy contains “internal” dollar limits. 5)Always carefully read and understand pre-existing condition clause and policy exclusions so that you will not be surprised down road if a claim is denied. This is important whether you are purchasing a standard medical, temporary, or student health insurance policy.
| | It's High Time for Lifetime Savings AccountsWritten by Terry Mitchell
I'm constantly reading articles on internet and in financial magazines in which so-called financial planning experts express perplexity as to why about 30% of employees do not participate in their employers’ 401(k) plans. These writers don’t seem to have clue. Well, allow me to enlighten them a bit. For most part, it’s because of restrictions imposed on employees’ money. Also, because many people never know when they might need access to their money, they are unwilling to tie it up for long periods of time. They would rather give up tax advantages as well as their employers’ matching contributions than to have those restrictions and age requirements placed on their money. I know because I was one of those people for many years. I just couldn’t bring myself to tie up my savings like that until I could see that my retirement was less than 25 years away. Unfortunately, it’s not advisable or practical to wait that long to start saving for retirement. It’s not just 401(k) plans that tend to scare people off. All of tax-sheltered accounts currently available require us to either use money way government dictates (for retirement, education, medical expenses, buying a house, etc.) or jump through a bunch of hoops (which usually requires extensive knowledge of tax laws or services of an accountant or tax lawyer) to be allowed to do otherwise. Anyway, what good would even a 50% average annual return do you if died before you were legally allowed to access those funds? It’s high time we got a tax-sheltered account which allows us to spend our money when, where, and how we want, without having to ask for anyone’s advice or permission. After all, it’s our money and we don’t need a government nanny watching what we do with it. So, what’s solution? Congress should get busy and pass legislation to create a Lifetime Savings Account option for taxpayers. There is at least one proposal for this kind of account floating around in Congress right now, with more expected soon. These accounts are not be confused with so-called personal savings accounts that might be a part of any Social Security reform. Lifetime Savings Accounts would not be in any way connected to Social Security.
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