USA Today Article on Health Insurance

[tomz]

Nothing surprising for participants on this board. But it is nice to see USA Today doing articles like this one.

[Martha]

It would be nice if they had a bit more detail on options . . .

I wouldn't have even bothered to mention membership organization coverage as it is about nonexistent.

But yes, good that they are talking about it.

[Jonathan Pletzke]

I second Martha's comment about membership group coverage - the few places that it does exist, it is being dropped.

The rates that they quoted are misleading. It depends greatly on the state, the number of insureds (1 or 2 if the kids are gone - you don't need a family plan at this point), and the health of the insured (in most states).

Here are a couple of other options that some folks might be able to make work. Long time readers of the forum may be familiar with a number of these:

1. Get a small business policy for your retirement business. For example, my neighbor Mike wants to retire to the beach and run a little bait shop/convenience store. Setting that up a year before early retirement would allow someone with a medical condition to get guaranteed issue small business health with either a one person or two person group policy, depending on the state.

2. Move to another state (or another country). Since health insurance depends greatly on your state of residence, moving might make the difference between getting health insurance, and no health insurance. And has a huge impact on the rates.

3. Choice of plan, deductible, and coinsurance. Raise deductible, eliminate coinsurance, and choosing a plan that has a network and then staying within the network can lower rates.

4. Also, sometimes you can do something about your health that will reduce rates, difficult as it may be. Tobacco use and excess weight are two factors that raise health insurance rates significantly when they are included in medical underwriting, which is in most states.