Individual or Family Health Insurance Options

by Fern Kuhn, RN

As more and more individuals working at home with or without families find themselves without some kind of group health insurance. Sometimes even working at a job, no health insurance is even offered.

Thousands of hard-working people in every state are making dangerous choices: No health insurance at all! They believe they are too young or too healthy. They believe they "save a little or a lot of money" and can do without.

Consider your friends, family and neighbors - people who may have been sick or injured. The fact is, even healthy people may end up with a serious medical condition that can be extremely costly to treat.

Now you can consider how much of a terrible ordeal would be without some kind of quality health insurance to pay for thousands of dollars in doctor fees or hospital bills!

When you really think of it and ask yourself this question … "Can I afford health insurance?" and more importantly: "Can I afford to be without it?"

You have to determine whether you are young if I really need the insurance. There are other types of insurance that gives you a discount on all your doctor and hospital bills.

Health insurance is not cheap but if you are over 35 years old, you probably should rethink whether you need individual or family health insurance coverage or is the discounted health insurance really right for you. One illness can put you in debt.

If you are an individual you might pay $400 getting the insurance privately but if you have a family you may pay $700+ each month just for an HMO. Can you afford that? Otherwise try and consider getting a job that pays for some of the insurance even if the salary is slightly less.

Insurance rates have gone sky high and it looks like there is no end to it. Just one incident can devastate your whole life savings.

If you are a single parent with a child, you will wind up paying the family rate which is unfair. If you are a college student, check with a college to see what their health insurance may cover. Otherwise, there are insurance companies that offer health insurance for college students.

This is not legal advice or any type of advice for you to get insurance or not. You need to research whether or not you can afford to be with or without the insurance.

Copyright 2005 You may reprint this article as long as you keep the links active

Fern Kuhn, RN I had to get individual health insurance myself and have done much research in this area