With all the talk about health insurance and its associated costs, I decided to become better informed. What would I need to know in order to make a smart purchase? What information is out there?
The short answer: it is confusing, and the insurance companies aren’t exactly helping.
First things first
The first real task is to understand all the confusing terms. What is a PPO? An HMO? What is co-insurance? How do deductibles work? How can we possibly make an informed decision when companies aren’t comparing apples to apples?
The good news is that there are online sources to help us.
The bad news is that finding unbiased info (i.e., from somebody who doesn’t want to sell us a policy or a philosophy) is not easy. Even worse, slanted message often contains a sprinkling of truth.
I don’t pretend to be an insurance expert and what’s more, this article is not intended to teach you about insurance. What I can do is share some sources that seem to have little or no bias.
Places to start (in black and white)
I came across eHealthInsurance.com early in my search. The site claimed to compare any policy available in any state.
The website’s credibility went up when I discovered on the ConsumerReports.org site that they linked to eHealthInsurance.com as a source of information. And yes, it appears you can learn a lot by clicking their Health Insurance Buyer’s Guide link.
Another source is the NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) website. Compare what they tell you with the eHealthInsurance.com site. Visit the NAIC site by clicking here.
More info (videos)
I did find a series of videos on YouTube that range from very helpful (explaining policy types, terms, etc.) to somewhat political (advocating for national health insurance). What I didn’t like was that when one video finished the next automatically began. YouTube allows you to turn off auto play, and it’s worth doing that.
The screenshot below shows what I searched for in YouTube, as well as the double-arrow button that reveals thumbnails of all videos in the series. If you disable auto play and use the thumbnails, you’re more likely to see only what pertains to you. Click here to visit the video in the screenshot.
If you’re in the market for health insurance
I found the eHealthInsurance.com site to be worth looking into. Be aware that they are acting as an insurance agent, and that they need to sell policies to stay in business. Fair enough, if we understand that.
I did discover something else there that seemed disturbing. When my search results appeared and I clicked to sort by price, the lowest price policy did not appear until I clicked the Show All button. Then magically the more affordable plans emerged at the top of the list. I suppose certain salespeople won’t talk about the best-priced plan until you ask for it. Hmm.
