Medical, health, nutrition, health software and logic.
Okay…so you’ve visited countless websites, received instant health insurance quotes and colorful benefit descriptions with enough small print to make you scream…WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN (and who writes this stuff)!!!
Well we didn’t write it but after years of reading it, we have boiled down the various plans to 5 key elements…and if you understand just these points…you will be able to walk into the California health insurance market with confidence (and a fair amount of sanity left).
Part of the reason that I initially got my insurance license, was that as a business consultant focused on change management, nearly every business owner, CFO and HR director that I spoke to asked me what I could do about the rising cost of their healthcare benefits. Up until recently, with regard to their major medical plan costs rising at double-digit rates every year, there was little I could recommend aside from biting the bullet and accepting that it would be a painful process of micro re-examination of plan costs nearly every year. Many decision makers are being forced to shift costs to their employees or do away with certain benefits altogether. Fortunately, now there is finally a sensible way to reduce costs (and taxes, by the way), give employees more choice, more security and believe it or not, keep them from storming the castle with rakes and torches when you ask them to contribute more out of their own pockets. These plans are aptly called “Consumer Driven Health Plans” (or CDHPs) because the policyholder makes as many choices about their health benefit plans as their employer.
Five Critical Criteria used to compare California carriers.
1. Health Plan pricing in the market. Ultimately, benefits need to be priced well relative to other similar plans on the market. Also, the plans have to make sense financially in today’s world of ever-increasing cost. Some large multi-line carriers like Principle offer extremely rich benefits that have completely priced themselves out of the market. There’s a “sweet spot” where plan design meets the consumer’s budget and that has to be a given when choosing a plan. Interestingly enough, this pricing value is driven by a carriers ability to do well in the following other areas so let’s take a look at them. More information on the major carriers in the California market.
About 50 years ago, health insurance started to be an attractive incentive offered by employers to attract and keep good employees. Overall, group plans tended to be inexpensive for employers, with employees contributing a small amount of money or none at all to secure health insurance for themselves and their families.
It was more expensive for individuals to pay for non-group policies, but coverage was fairly affordable. Then medical costs started to rise, people started to live longer and the medical profession became adept at curing various diseases and saving and prolonging the lives of people with serious injuries and life-threatening illnesses. Health care and insurance prices started rising much more quickly than annual incomes and premiums began taxing both employers, who were paying the lion’s share of premiums, and for employees, to whom businesses often passed on costs through larger deductibles, greater out of pocket expenses and higher premiums.
Around 7 million people in the UK are covered by health insurance, the majority being covered through their employers. The problem is that few have really studied their policy documents and many misunderstand what is covered. And perhaps just as important, what isn’t. If you expect health insurance to pay all your health costs, you’re mistaken.
Health insurance is designed to provide protection for curable, short-term health problems and allow policyholders to jump the NHS queues to see consultants, be diagnosed, receive surgery or be treated. That sounds fine, but before you buy you need to appreciate the treatments and situations that fall outside the scope of the cover.