Private
Health Insurance Is Available
Every year, millions of Americans who have health
insurance through employers lose it for one reason
or another: They're laid off, they retire early,
they head off to college. Doing without something as
basic as health insurance can be risky because an
unexpected illness can devastate a family's finances
for years.
Private policies are available, but
finding them takes research and they're often more
costly than company group rates. For someone who
loses a job with a large or mid-size company, the
best option is often a COBRA policy, said Alan R.
Ziegler, president of the Society of Financial
Service Professionals, an organization of insurance
and benefits specialists and financial planners.
COBRA, which takes its name from the Consolidated
Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1986 that
created it, allows workers to continue their
employer health care coverage after they've been
laid off or voluntarily left a job, generally for up
to 18 months. "The ex-worker pays the full premium,
so it can be costly," said Ziegler, chief executive
of the Futures Funding Corp. in Rochester, N.Y. "But
you're buying quality coverage." If that isn't a
possibility, he said, consider joining an
organization that offers group health insurance as a
member perk. "I often urge people to look at their
local Chamber of Commerce or other business group,"
Ziegler said. "Or if any member of the family is in
any affinity group – say real estate agents or
painting contractors or other occupational
organizations - check if there's a group policy
available."
Many consumers, however, end up trying
to go it alone, and that generally means seeking
bids from at least four or five carriers because
premiums and coverage vary widely. Insurance agents
can help, or consumers can call local Blue
Cross-Blue Shield organizations or HMOs as well as
private carriers.
Carrie Holder, 41, of San Francisco, lost her
health coverage when her dot-com employer went out
of business while she was on maternity leave. Holder
and her husband, Bob Tracy, found a short-term
insurance policy after comparing a number of them on
the Internet insurance site
www.ehealthinsurance.com. They paid about $150 a
month to protect against any catastrophic illness,
and used their savings to cover routine doctor's
visits and prescriptions for themselves and their
son John, who turns 2 this month. "I called it my
sleep-at-night coverage," she said. "If any of us
landed in the emergency room, it was covered."
Holder has since found a small business health
insurance policy for the corporate video production
business she and her husband have started.
Gary
Lauer, chief executive of eHealthInsurance Inc. in
Sunnyvale, Calif., said the Internet makes it easier
for families to compare the prices and properties of
a variety of policies. "For many people, there are
affordable options out there," he said. Lauer said a
family of four, for example, could buy insurance for
about $340 a month with a $500 deductible. The
deductible is what the family pays out of pocket
before the insured coverage kicks in. A single man
in his mid-30s would pay about $100 a month for a
similar policy, he said. In general, the higher the
premium, the more likely the policy is to have both
physician and pharmaceutical coverage and a low
deductible. Lauer said he's seeing increased demand
for health coverage from the self-employed - some of
them displaced workers who start businesses at home
- and from small businesses. There are a variety of
Internet sites where consumers can go for
information: - The Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality, which is part of the Department of
Health and Human Services, maintains www.ahcpr.gov
with good, basic information on the types of
insurance available, definitions of terms and advice
on how to shop for insurance.
The site www.healthinsuranceinfo.net, set up by
the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute,
has consumer guides for all 50 states and the
District of Columbia on getting and keeping health
insurance, including protections for those with
serious illnesses. - The Health Insurance
Association of America, a trade group based in
Washington, D.C., has an online "Guide to Health
Insurance" at www.hiaa.org as well as a directory of
state insurance agencies. The state agencies carry
lists of insurance companies approved to operate in
each state.
This article was written by EILEEN ALT POWELL
ASSOCIATED PRESS 8-14-03 NEW YORK (AP) and appeared
in NYTimes.com, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The:
News Yahoo! Finance HoustonChronicle.com (TX),
AP-NY-08-14-03 1017ED Las Vegas Sun (NV),
Minneapolis Star Tribune (MN), Washington Post
Appeared in 60+ news outlets including: CNN.com,
Arizona Republic, Chicago Daily News
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