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Instant Health Insurance Quotes Will Be a Favorite

Since the advent of instant health insurance quotes online, things got a whole lot easier for people who hated searching for health insurance information. Since mandatory health insurance is on its way into reality, this instant quote feature will be a big bonus for millions of Americans needing to buy health insurance.

If the last thing you want to do is try and figure out all the ins and outs of quoting and prices and exclusions and coverage and benefits, then stick with instant quotes online. You should aim to get up to four quotes for a good comparison. Just remember, that it’s not a good idea to buy health insurance based on price alone, as the policy may not cover your needs. Also keep in mind that what you want versus what you need are two different things, which is why you really need to know what is in the health insurance policy you want to buy.
To learn more and get a health insurance quote, visit http://www,benepath.com

Posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance.

Find Affordable Health Insurance Quotes in Your Local Area

To get the best and most affordable health insurance quotes online, look for pricing information in your local area. This is the best way to get a deal for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that your local insurance broker KNOWS their market inside out and will give you tips on where the best doctors are, who pays their claims and who doesn’t, and what the best hospitals are in your area. This is insider information, and why not make it work for you?

Spend some time talking to the broker outlining what you need in terms of an affordable health insurance policy and then take it from there. Always ask questions because they expect you to ask questions. Anyone who doesn’t work in the insurance industry isn’t going to understand the jargon, the benefits, the exclusions, the coverage and the fine print – so ask, and you shall receive information to make an informed decision.
To learn more and get a health insurance quote, visit http://www,benepath.com

Posted on Monday, June 14th, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance.

What to Know Before Forking over Money for a Family Health Insurance Policy

You need to know how expensive the policy will be because it has to fit into your budget plans. Interestingly enough many people take the first policy an agent recommends. While it could be a good recommendation, you should get more information.

The agent recommended policy may not be the right kind of family health insurance plan for you. Education is the big thing here. Compare at least three plans and remember that the cheapest isn’t always the best. Cheap does not always equate to good coverage. If you do want decent coverage, you may need to revise your budget a bit.

To learn more and get a health insurance quote, visit https://www.benepath.com

Posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance.

Quoting Now or Later May Be Different When It Comes to Health Insurance

OK, let’s look at this for a minute. If you must get a mandatory health insurance quote now, what is to say that will be the same quote you will get when you actually have to “buy” the health insurance? There is a huge difference between a quote and the final buy price when there is a lengthy period of time between the quote and the purchase.

Overall, this new Health Reform Bill that forces people to buy health insurance will either be a boon or a bust. Mostly, whether it’s a boon or a bust depends on the price of individual health insurance policies – as in – will they go up, up, up or will they go down, down, down? It might be foolish to think the insurance industry can self-regulate and not overcharge for policies to cover potential shortfalls for high risk insureds – but – we can always dream.
To learn more and get a health insurance quote, visit http://www,benepath.com

Posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance.

Other Things to Check for when Shopping for a Family Health Insurance Quote

Once you have a handle on the price of your family health insurance quote, ask the insurance agent what exclusions apply. Why do you want to do this? You need to do this because the answers will tell you what is NOT covered in your family health insurance policy.

Knowing what isn’t covered is actually more important than knowing what IS covered, because if you don’t know what is covered you run the risk of getting an awful surprise later when you have medical treatment for something that “isn’t” covered when you thought that it was. While you’re at it, you should also make it a point to find out what your individual coverage limits are. This means what the limits are on EACH policy item.

This will tell you if you have enough protection for the family.
To learn more and get a health insurance quote, visit https://www.benepath.com

Posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance.

Health Care Reform Penalties Loom in the Future

Fancy the concept of having to buy health insurance and then if you don’t, you get a hefty IRS imposed penalty. Boggles the imagination at times doesn’t it? Also raises the question about people’s human rights and how can the government override them and force them to buy health care insurance? That aside, insurance companies are currently frantically trying to figure out how to price the products they will be offering the millions of uninsured Americans who will flock to the insurance grail for a policy.

While this may generate a fierce round of competition among the insurance companies with regard to prices, chances are just as good that it may go the other way. Meaning that since the insurance companies may lose money on whom they insure, because they can’t turn down anyone, they may hike their rates to cover that possibility. It goes without saying that the next few years will be interesting indeed.

To learn more and get a health insurance quote, visit http://www,benepath.com

Posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance.

Health Reform Won’t Reduce Health Insurance Costs

On the front page of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were two articles that really hit at the heart of health reform’s promise of covering everyone and reducing/controlling health insurance costs.

In the New York Times there was also a full page ad run by the American Medical Association urging Congress to pass emergency legislation to prevent their reimbursement rates from dropping. This happens every year as Congress does not have the will to actually implement cost saving measures it adopted years ago to control runaway Medicare expenses. I’m sure that Congress will come back from their Memorial Day break and pass this legislation; like they do every year.

So what makes anyone think that when the time comes to start cutting provider fees under health reform that Congress won’t pass emergency legislation every year to prevent those cuts from happening. I am pretty sure that it won’t, and the attacks on the Dartmouth Study are the initial campaigns by health care providers to make sure its not their fat cut from the meat to pay for health reform.

Karl Rove in his Op-Ed piece in the WSJ makes some pretty compelling arguments about other hidden costs, points out that the Congressional Budget Office has added another $120 Billion to the price tag of health reform and that Medicare’s chief actuary sees many places where the unintended consequences of health reform will cost us a lot more money. While slanted, its worth a read.

Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care MapWhen promoting the cost savings of health reform, the administration used the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care to show that there is up to $700B a year in potential savings by eliminating “waste” in the health care system. Today’s article in the New York Times makes a very compelling case that the potential savings are significantly less than advertised as “measures of the quality of care are not part of the formula”.

The study mainly shows the varying costs of care in Medicare by region. Everything about savings was an extremely loose extrapolation of the data as it was argued that care in Iowa and Minnesota is better and cheaper than care in New Jersey or Miami. In fact, this article points out that there is little evidence to support this notion.

Bottom line, the recently enacted Health Care Reform plan will cost our country significantly more than advertised and it is simply not possible to provide universal coverage without raising revenue (aka taxes) – on pretty much everyone.

If the legislation goes into effect, it will make our existing budget problems worse and it will lead to higher taxes eventually, and again, not just on people making more than $250,000.

Personally, I am not opposed to the concept that everyone should get health care, but in a democracy we need to have an honest conversation about how much that will cost and then decide if the majority of the people are willing to pay for universal coverage.

Posted on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance, Medicare.

New Bugs Defy Modern Medicine and Health Insurance Is Crucial

What a strange world we live in these days. It seems that more and more we are exposed to strange diseases like swine flu, SARS and other derivatives and mutations of what once used to be common illnesses. The world is rapidly changing and health care needs to evolve along with it.

If you have been stricken with a new illness or virus, you will know firsthand how important it is to have health insurance. If you don’t have health insurance and have to pay the medical bills on your own, you’re going to have a difficult financial struggle on your hands. All it takes is one illness and many doctors’ visits and perhaps a stay in hospital to wipe out any savings you may have had on hand.

To find reasonable health insurance coverage, shop online and compare quotes. It doesn’t take as long as it used to take.

To learn more and get a health insurance quote, visit www.benepath.com

Posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance.

Reduce Your Health Insurance Quotes by Loosing Weight the Right Way

For the 2/3’s of the people in the US who are either overweight or obese you will either pay more for health insurance or not be able to get health insurance because of your weight, at least until 2014. Like it or not, these people have a much greater chance of getting sick than the 1/3 of the population who are not overweight and the actual average medical expenses are 3 times greater than the people with healthy weight.

If you are in this group, when you get an online quote for health insurance expect the actual rate that you end up with to be at least 50% more than what you are looking at on the screen. That is about $3000 more a year for the typical family of 4 with a high deductible HSA type plan and about $6000 more if you opt for a plan with copays and low deductibles.

So, loosing the weight will pay off in real terms right away – if you can do it.

Now I am not a nutritionist, physician, etc. I am someone who did not get the right genes and have to fight my weight every day. So, I can empathize with those of you who look at your skinny friends who eat everything in site and don’t gain a pound while you eat what you consider to be modest portions and never loose weight.

But I have closely known many of the people who claim that its genes and I know the truth. If you are obese it is extremely likely that you:

 

  1. Eat more than you think
  2. Don’t exercise or exercise very infrequently
  3. If you do exercise, it gives you an excuse to have a quarter pounder, milk shake, gator aid, french fries, etc
  4. When you diet, you start some form of a food program that is essentially starving you – a program you could never actually live the rest of your life on. So, you loose some weight, go back to your old habits and gain it all back – and then some…
The math behind weight gain and weight loss does not require a Phd do understand:
Weight Gain is the Result of Taking in More Calories than You Burn
Weight Loss is the Result of Burning More Calories than You Take In
If you have a “slow” metabolism, see a doctor to verify it and then do something about it.
If you are ready to be honest with yourself and admit to the above, then you may be ready to change your behavior and loose weight in a healthy manner and then keep it off for life.
What do you need to change?
  1. Your Diet – And I do not mean diet in the “fad diet” sense. I mean what it is that you eat now, and what it is that you will eat for the rest of your life. The plain truth is you need a healthy eating program that you can stick with – forever! Now this does not mean giving up cake, cookies, chips, fries shakes, etc for the rest of your life, but it does mean that you will be cutting way back on them and when you do have some of these foods, that you make up for it with a bit more exercise or less food the next day.
  2. Exercise – First let me say how much I cringe every time I hear some expert on TV tell us that we need to have 90 minutes of exercise every day to do us any good. That is just false and I sincerely believe that people hear this and think – what is the point. The fact is 20 minutes of exercise three times a week is better than no exercise at all. Now that certainly is not optimal, but I understand that many of you have busy lives, kids, two jobs, etc and you just don’t have 90 minutes a day to devote to an exercise regimen.

free tv on pc

Some simple changes that will have a big impact on your weight
  1. Cut out Sugared Drinks – Seriously, just eliminate soda, athletic drinks, sugared waters, etc. Replace them with water (that is best) and diet soda.
  2. Limit the Amount of Fruit Juice You Drink – At least there is nutrition, and start cutting it with water. After a week you won’t know the difference and you will find that full strength juices are too sweet. Really.
  3. Cut out potato chips and french fries – Sure at a party, have a couple, but don’t buy them just to have around the house anymore and don’t get fries when you eat fast food.
  4. Don’t Supersize – Yea its a deal, but its a deal that will kill you. And try to choose the grilled chicken with no mayo instead of the burger. I ask for one of their barbecue sauce packets used for the chicken nuggets – saves a lot of bad fats.
  5. Don’t buy ice cream, cakes, cookies just to have around the house – these are treats, and when you don’t always have them at home, you won’t miss them. Then when you get them its a treat, not a normal part of your everyday meals.
  6. Switch from white break/pasta to whole grain break and pasta – First its actually more flavorful and delicious, second its way better for you.
  7. Sensible Portions – Start learning a few things about calories and get your calorie intake to a healthy level.
  8. Walk on a Routine – Pick a time of day and days of the week and go for a brisk walk. Drive the route you are going and try to build up to 3 miles. When you feel like it, switch from a walk to a run.
  9. Lift Some Weights – I don’t mean Mr Universe – just get some dumbells and do some basic weight lifting.
Follow the above and I am sure you will get results.

 

Posted on Friday, May 28th, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance, Life Insurance.

Save Money by Loosing Weight

No, I’m not writing about the latest get rich quick scheme; I’m writing about how being overweight costs you a lot of money and loosing weight will save you money.

Obesity causes or worsens a myriad of health conditions – diabetes, stroke, heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, cancer, sleep apnea, gout, bone spurs, and I could go on and on. When you add it up, obesity is probably the biggest reason health insurance costs go up so much every year.

If you maintain a healthy body weight and get a reasonable amount of exercise you will improve your health and you will reduce the amount of money you spend on health care. Think of all the copays, prescription costs, emergency room visits, etc you will be avoiding. And while the insurance company will bear most of the burden, you will face out of pocket expenses as well.

Then you can look at your earnings and how much less you earn because of obesity. The average obese person earns about $7,000 less a year than the comparable person with a healthy weight. Over a lifetime, that is a lot of money and this article gives a nice summary of the personal financial costs associated with obesity.

Finally, obesity shaves 10 years off of your life on average. 10 years less with your family and your friends.

That’s a lot of good reasons to finally do something about it and loose weight.

Posted on Thursday, May 27th, 2010. Filed under Health Insurance, Life Insurance.
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