Workers’ Health Insurance Info

In this unstable economy which is already at its knees due to the global financial crisis, it pays to pay closer scrutiny to your expenses, which include medical bills. As we all know, medical bills can be quite hefty, so here are two ways to help you keep you costs down without compromising your health.

1. Check your medical bills carefully.
You may not know it, but you could be being unintentionally (or worse, intentionally) charges for medical procedures you did not go through or for medicines that were not given to you. Although the hospital has a responsibility to bill you properly an accurately, mistakes can still occur, and it;s up to you to check that you’re not going to pay for the mistakes of someone.

2. Ask for generic medicines
Unless you’re REALLY sick and only designer drugs are available for you, try to ask you doctor to recommend generic drugs in your prescription.

Employees and other workers stand to lose a lot of their medical benefits should plans by many companies to trim down on contributions continue by the end of this year. It might seem like a long way off but with many more jobs forecast to be shed from the already dwindling workforce, these types of news are not good indeed. Companies have been trimming down workers to save on labor costs but with all economic signs pointing opposite of the well anticipated recovery, this taxes more on their profit levels often calling for drastic measures such as these.
Such a move would increase stress in the workforce for even in you have a job and employer sponsored health care, it might not still be enough for your needs. Statistics show that employees who are under 50 have in the past two years had to go without proper health care for at least two instances showing the strain the health care system is taking. Proposals coming out of the new administration are good but with the economy still on a slide, it may take a long time for the whole economy to recover.

Recession has workers and employers putting asides their differences to try and give in to each others wants and needs. The cooperation we see is awe inspiring for rarely do these two camps side on and decide as one on matters that may dictate the work they do and when they should do it. The worsening economic conditions are getting people fired faster that they can be created by the new government and the end isn’t even in sight.
Workers groups and management of the world’s top firms have had to compromise on steps they could take to maintain the integrity of the firms they work for or else risk going bankrupt ending up as a loss for all. Shortened work schedules, longer weekends and other compromise agreements are keeping workers in their jobs but the question is for how long. Management wants to keep their skilled people on-board as long as possible but time is against their side fro slumping sales cannot bring in enough cash to put back in the business to keep it running. Those who have ample health and employee insurance have a little more to offer but others without the said benefits want to keep their jobs so they can continue to bring home the bacon so to speak.

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Life insurance is often considered the all-important insurance more especially when children are still young. Bread winners want to be sure that if worse comes to worst, the family still has somewhere to stay, the house can still be paid and the children can still go to college. But they usually don’t remember the second worst thing - a disability that could leave the entire family with a depleted savings account or totally without income. In the USA, more life insurance than disability policies are being sold everyday when anyone who relies on income to support a family will definitely need it. The early death of a bread winner has a hard impact on the family, but disability can be equally hard to a family’s financial condition because together with the loss of income, other unforeseen expenditures will have to be incurred like rehabilitation, training for a new job, changes to the home or car to adapt to a handicap or 24-hour medical care.

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Around 87% of the residents of Germany have statutory health insurance through the GKV which is a non-profit entity. The GKV relied on 321 non-profit sickness funds to pay health care providers in accordance with their agreement.Those who were not under this type of insurance , such as the civil servants and the self-employed, received individual (for profit) health insurance. About 250,000 people in Germany has no insurance at all because some of them are filthy rich that they can afford to pay for any and all liabilities they face. But majority of them are poor and avail of health care services through the government.

Health Savings Accounts (HSA) is a special type of savings account that allows you to deposit part of your pre-tax income and use it in the future for medical, long term care, and/or retirement expenses. You can only get an HSA if you also have qualified high-deductible health coverage. The deductible must be at least $1050/year for individuals, or $2100 for families. They are designed to reduce healthcare insurance costs for employers and employees. HSA savings are owned by the individual, you keep the accounts no matter where - or if - you work. They also roll over from year to year, so you can accumulate savings over time. Some HSAs accumulate interest and dividends that are tax-free or tax-deferred. The money in these accounts can be used towards all kinds of medical expenses, including those not covered by your high-deductible health plan, such as dental care or over-the-counter medication.

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Disability cover is often passed by when looking for insurance. Although people will insure their estate and vehicles, they easily overlook the importance of insuring themselves personally against injury. Disability insurance pays funds when you can’t provide for your family.

Why do so many people over look this type of insurance?

While there is no way to know, it is often thought that people have the idea that they will not get hurt and they will be able to work as long as they would like. Unfortunately, that does not happen for many people.

People become ill or are involved in accidents without any warning, which could devastate a family that is dependent on their family for financial stability.

Disability insurance is often purchased as part of life insurance coverage, but can be sold separately. This is often called total and permanent disability insurance. It provides you with funds to pay for your bills should you be unable to work.

There are also some disability insurance plans that provide for temporary coverage, but this may also be provided by your health provider or your worker’s compensation (should you be hurt on the job). This type of temporary coverage is called income protection insurance.

From Wikipedia:

Premium: The amount the policy-holder pays to the health plan each month to purchase health coverage.

Deductible: The amount that the policy-holder must pay out-of-pocket before the health plan pays its share. For example, a policy-holder might have to pay a $500 deductible per year, before any of their health care is covered by the health plan. It may take several doctor’s visits or prescription refills before the policy-holder reaches the deductible and the health plan starts to pay for care.

Copayment: The amount that the policy-holder must pay out of pocket before the health plan pays for a particular visit or service. For example, a policy-holder might pay a $45 copayment for a doctor’s visit, or to obtain a prescription. A copayment must be paid each time a particular service is obtained.

Coinsurance: Instead of paying a fixed amount up front (a copayment), the policy-holder must pay a percentage of the total cost. For example, the member might have to pay 20% of the cost of a surgery, while the health plan pays the other 80%. Because there is no upper limit on coinsurance, the policy-holder can end up owing very little, or a significant amount, depending on the actual costs of the services they obtain.

Even though the cost of coverage of health insurance by employers is only 6.1%, still the percentage of U.S. small businesses who cover their employees with health insurance coninue to decline this year. This is according to an annual survey conducted by Mercer, a global consulting firm for a sample of 3,000 employers who participated in the survey.

Only 61% of employers with less than 200 employees offered health coverage this year. In 2006, it was 63%, in 2002, 66% of small employers provided health insurance.

This is the third year in a row of moderate increases in health insurance costs, that followed years of double-digit percentage increases. Costs in 2008 are expected to grow even less, but it is expected that they will remain twice as high as the inflation rate.

Both large and small employers who offer health insurance have shifted more of the cost to their employees through higher deductibles.

Large employers in particular are using health management programs as a way to control costs, Mercer found.

Growth in consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs), which cost less than other types of health insurance, also helped curb overall health costs, according to Mercer. The percentage of covered employees enrolled in either a health savings account (HSA) or a health reimbursement account (HRA) rose from 3 percent in 2006 to 5 percent this year.

“As employees shift from more expensive plans into less expensive ones, employers’ overall cost per employee drops,” said Blaine Bos, a Mercer partner.

Consumer-directed health plans, which feature high deductibles and individual spending accounts, are most common among large employers, which typically offer them as one of several options for medical coverage.

More than 60 percent of large employers with an HSA plan said employees reacted positively to it. Average enrollment in HSAs or HRAs at large employers that offered them for at least three years has increased from 21 percent in 2005 to 29 percent in 2007, according to Mercer.

“With these encouraging results, it might seem surprising that employers aren’t moving faster to adopt CDHPs,” Bos said.

“But they worry such a big change in such an important benefit could hurt attraction and retention. So even when they do add a CDHP, most make it an option, which dilutes potential savings.”

Mercer also asked employers what they think about health care reform proposals. Only 23 percent support requiring employers to either offer health insurance or pay into a fund to provide coverage to the uninsured. The same percentage supported requiring all individuals to buy insurance.

“You might expect more employer health plan sponsors to favor individual mandates, which could relieve existing employer plans of cost shifting from the uninsured,” Bos said. “It may be that employers — or at least the individuals responding to the survey — are simply distrustful of any kind of government-imposed mandate.”

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, a House member from Ohio, said the decline in small business coverage demonstrates the need for national health insurance, or “Medicare for All.”

“Small businesses are no longer willing to bear the burden of the cost of keeping the health insurance industry profitable,” he said. “It’s time for America to join with the rest of the industrialized nations of the world in guaranteeing health care for its people.”

Source: bizjournals.com

The third type of managed care plan aside from HMO and PPO is the POS Plan. A Point-of-Service or POS Plan is a hybrid of the Health Maintenance Organization or HMO Plan and the Preferred Providers Organization or PPO Plan. In POS, the primary care doctors will make referrals to other providers included in the plan. If a member chooses to leave the network, the POS plan will pay for a set amount of the bill. These kind of plans costs more than HMOs but they are more flexible because you could call a doctor on your own whenever you want and even if your primary care physician doesn’t.