Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Re-evaluating my health insurance to save money

Michael's work has crappy health insurance options. The coverage for him is freaking awesome, and they pay the whole premium for him. When you add family, the cost is ridiculous. They have one plan, and to add me to it would cost 1/3 of his income. I rarely go to the doctor. I'm very healthy, and I just prefer to treat things at home. However, I do want to have something in place in the event that I got some terrible disease or got into a car accident. A year and a half ago I purchased a crappy plan through BCBS that would cover that kind of thing. $5,000 deductible, 80/20 plan. At least we wouldn't be bankrupt if I got into a car accident or something. In 18 months I have not utilized that insurance at all. I paid $116/month for it. So I decided to re-evaluate. The whole reason that I want it is for hospital-type emergencies. I don't want to be saddled with a huge bill if I get into a car wreck, for instance. For doctor visits, I don't utilize the insurance that I already have--I have been going to the student health center at school for the few doctor visits I've needed in the last year and a half, and they wouldn't file with my insurance anyway. So I decided to go with a hospital-only plan, that is only $44/month. It only covers actual hospital costs, not physician costs. It's not ideal, but neither was the other one, and I figure if I'm going to have insurance that I'm not going to use, I want it to be as cheap as possible. I'm currently looking for a full-time job with health benefit, so I hope I'll be able to have "real" insurance again soon.

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