Balancing Health Coverage and Price
You cannot judge a health care insurance plan’s value by dollars and cents alone. Cheap premiums don’t mean very much if you aren’t covered for care you need or if your part to pay is much too expensive.
You can better judge whether coverage and price match up by doing comparison shopping for similar plans. If the terms are very different, you can’t really compare one pricing scheme to another. Be certain that coverage is the same and then make the best choice.
Before you can compare plans, you need to decide how much coverage you really need. If you could pay for most ordinary expenses yourself, like prescriptions, office visits and most tests, you may only need a policy that covers major medical expenses. These cost far less because they only pay for extremely high charges.
Most people of course will require more than just this sort of catastrophe-only plan. They will need help with routine and illness and injury related visits as well as testing and prescription drugs. Yet again, ability to pay these charges in part will shape the premium charge.
If you cannot budget money to cover the co-payments, you are better off paying somewhat higher premiums and then having small payments at the point of service. If you can discipline yourself and your budget and have relatively good health, you can save on premiums and bank the difference to use if needed for your share of the costs.
Health insurance deductibles also affect the cost of coverage. You can get much more coverage for the same or lower premiums often if you accept a higher deductible, just like it happens with car insurance. You just have to be sensible about how much of a deductible you can really afford. Balancing price and coverage means deciding whether you would rather pay now or pay later in most cases.