Analyzing Health Costs

Health Insurance Is Too Expensive , Or Is It? How Can You Tell? A friend of mine recently told me his sister in law went in for Outpatient surgery, but because it was finished late they decided to keep her overnight and discharge her the next morning. The bill was over $10,000. This is the "Basic" need that you want to cover with Health Insurance. One way to analyze your cost of coverage is to get a quote on very basic coverage. In-patient hospital coverage with outpatient surgery coverage only (Outpatient Coverage is important because a lot is done outpatient today) with a high deductible of say $2,500 and a coinsurance of 80/20 of the next $5,000 for a total out of pocket maximum of $3,500. Treat this as your basic cost of catastrophic coverage. In this case a $10,000 or $900,000 bill would cost you $3,500. Next get a quote on a plan with all the "bells and whistles" that you would like to have. This is your perfect plan. Subtract the cost of the perfect plan from the basic plan and you will find out the cost of these "extras" and determine if they are worth that much to you or which ones are really necessary. When you work with an Independent Agent, you can then start building a plan with what you need at a cost that you can afford.