Health Insurance: Who To Give Money To?
Posted by Cap in Personal Finance on March 21, 2006 |Three months ago I mentioned that I no longer have health insurance. Apparently that’s a bad idea. My wacky diet of 85% Crunch Berries probably doesn’t help any.
Thanks to comments left by other bloggers, I have been hard at work finding a suitable health insurance plan. It was noted that I should get insured ASAP!
So yeah, three months later, I’ve narrowed it down to three plans. These are all high deductible plans with 0% coinsurance, purely for covering a catastrophic illness.
Who to go with?
There are some local providers that may be cheaper, but I’m choosing larger/nationwide providers so that hopefully, the expected price increase on premiums would be more reasonable (if there’s even such a thing).
The lifetime maximum for each of those plans above are similar, with Health Net and Blue Shield at $6 Million and Aetna at $5 Million.
I’ve rummage through the terms and policies of each plan carefully, and the gist of them is basically this:
If you get sick, your illness is probably not covered. Sucker.
So far I’m leaning towards the cheapest plan from Health Net. I expect to have the coverage for about a year or two, till I graduate from college and hopefully attach myself parasitically to some multi-billion dollar corporation that also can’t afford health insurance.
8 Responses to “Health Insurance: Who To Give Money To?”
Leave a Comment
Woops, Bought More Crap (Again) »
« Update on Hat to Emigrant Direct
March 21st, 2006 at 11:40 am
I’ve had both BCBS and Aetna in CA, but I don’t think I ever used their services but once for a physical (Thank goodness).
Haven’t heard of HealthNet, I would ask around for a good primary care physician, and ask what he/she takes.
March 21st, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Go for the lower deductable with the better options on it.
Kevin
March 21st, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Health Net is pretty big. Yeah, I already have a primary care physician and he takes either of the three, so I guess I’ll just go with the cheapest one as Kevin mentioned.
thanks again for the link to ehealthinsurance, it was pretty helpful (in explaining how health insurance works too).
March 21st, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Whatever you do, don’t go with Aetna. My family has had two different Aetna plans in the past three years - an HMO and a PPO. Last year, the only hospital in my city stopped taking the HMO because Aetna wanted to lower the amount they paid to the provider, so we had to go 35 miles away to another city just to see a doctor. The PPO is accepted here, but Aetna has raised rates incredibly over the last three years. Not only that, but the things your policy says are covered are often not - that has happened to me twice, and I ended up paying for something that was supposed to be totally covered. It’s all bad, but my experiences with Aetna have totally turned me off that company. Insurance my aunt fanny; the only thing they insure is that the prices will increase exponentially, and the coverage will decrease to the same degree. Go cheap - since you’re gonna get screwed anyway, at least you won’t pay as much in the process.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:35 am
hey terry, I really appreciate the 2cent. I’m still trying to see if I can dig up more complaint from either companies to see which is the lesser evil to go with.
March 23rd, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Trust me when I tell you NOT to save the extra money and go with Health Net. You will never see a doctor because well they don’t have any PCPs. The customer service sucks and you will never get any help from them.
March 26th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Just starting reading this site….but if you are enrolled in college fulltime…you may already have health coverage as part of your tuition. I know the UC system requires all students to accept their health insurance — or prove they have private insurance. If you are covered thru your tuition — it will have decent coverage and low copays. Just a thought.
March 27th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
hmm okay after the last comment on Health Net (and few more searches).. it looks like Blue Shield may be a better choice (or rather no other choices).
bonnie, I forgot to make a link to the old post, but basically my current community college doesnt provide any health insurance, (most don’t, I believe).
I use to attend cal poly pomona, which had a health insurance program for the CSU system, but yeah unfortunately I’m no longer a student there. I plan to transfer back within a year or two, so I’m just trying to cover my own butt in the mean time.
thanks for the suggestion though!