Tuesday
A Few Things You Should Know About When Your Are Looking For Michigan Health Insurance
About 1.4 million Michiganders don't have health insurance and this number is going up each year. The uninsured include people who are unemployed, self-employed, employees of small businesses, young adults (they feel that the money is better sent on other things) and people who choose not to buy insurance even though they can afford to. The State of Michigan has low cost programs are available to help the uninsured.
For example, MIChild is a health insurance program for uninsured children of Michigan's working families and the Healthy Kids program for pregnant woman of Michigan. Other uninsured that meet the income and asset level may be eligible for coverage through Medicaid (the MIChild, Healthy Kids and Medicaid have recently been expanded to include applicants with higher income and asset level do to the stimulus bill signed into law in February of 2009). For more information on Medicaid programs contact your county community health department and for more information on MIChild or Healthy Kids see link below
Michigan Health Insurance For Individuals and Families:
If you do not qualify for any government program or do not have access through you employer, you have options when looking for affordable private pay health insurance plans. The options that are available are the following:
- Short term (insurance needs for less than 6 month) or permanent health insurance (insurance need for longer then 6 months).
- Hospitalization only or Major coverage (doctors, RX, Hospitalization, dental and vision)
- HMOs (managed care that require referrals to see specialist) and PPOs (no referral to see specialist, but must use doctor and hospital in network). You will need to decide on a budget, as this will narrow your choice down as to the type of plans that are available with the features you require.
Other Considerations You Must Think About Before You Purchase A Plan:
- How big a co-pay am I willing to have to see the doctor (co-pays in Michigan range between $25.00 to $50.00 per visit) or am I willing just to pay out of pocket for doctor visit and have it go to my calendar year deductible?
- How much am I willing to pay in deductible (Michigan Health insurance consumer have deductible options between $500.00 to $10,000.00) per calendar year (the higher the deductible the lower the monthly premium)?
- What level of co-insurance (the amount you pay as a percentage of the amount of covered service after you reach your calendar deductible, usual 20% to 30% of the next $10,000, $15,000 or up to $50,000) are you comfortable with?
- In Michigan the maximum out of pocket (this is deductible plus co-insurance) in a calendar year before the insurance company pays 100% for covered service is regulated by state law. You need to make sure you can take the hit to pay the maximum out of pocket in a calendar year. If this is a family plan the maximum out of pocket for a family is doubled the individual MOP. Also, if you can't come up with the cash at one time most hospital in Michigan will work out a payment plan as low as $50.00 per month.
- Is my doctor and hospital in the network that the insurance company uses? Your agent should be able to give you this information.
Where to Get Affordable Michigan Health Insurance:
Some people think that the best place to look for an affordable health insurance plans is on the Internet. Yes! It makes the process fast and easy for you to get and compare quotes from different insurance companies. The draw back is that when you get that online quote your information is sold up to 30 different agents who just want to sell you a plan over the phone in one phone call so they can turn in the new business and get their advanced commission the next week on the sale. So if you want to get bomb-barded with phone calls from agents as fair away as California for the next two to three weeks and from agents who want to make a quick sale, go to one of those websites that offer free health quotes.
Also, another thing about looking for affordable health insurance online is that from experience 99% of people never read up on the plans they are comparing and just purchase the cheapest plan that is offered in the State of Michigan. The Internet is a great start to get an idea how much a health insurance plan will cost. But you do yourself a disservice by not speaking with an independent micigan health insurance agent.
Frank_Baker
