How to Get Health Insurance If You're Uninsured Or Just Unsure

If you've recently lost your job or are self employed or work as a freelancer, you may not have health insurance. You're not alone. Hundreds of thousands go uninsured due to financial reasons.

Others may be staying in jobs they hate "because I need the health benefits" and they worry about what to do if they make a transition. You're not alone either. Good health is a huge priority. Without that, everything else can fall apart.

I'm a strong advocate for taking preventative health measures. But part of taking preventative measures is making sure you see your physician for annual general checkups along with followups, and seeing a physician when you know something is wrong.

Since it can be confusing navigating where to go to obtain health insurance during such times, I thought the following might help.

The American Diabetes Association has put together a very helpful resource guide for you. I've used New York here, since many of you reside there but you can get the same information for ANY state by clicking on your state on the red map on their website.

NEW YORK

The following information details health insurance and assistance programs available to uninsured people in New York.

If you currently have health insurance or have just lost health insurance coverage within the past 60 days, visit the health insurance section of the American Diabetes Association website for options available to you.

New York Insurance Department - (800) 342-3736

Residents of New York cannot be turned down from purchasing an individual health insurance policy regardless of any health conditions they may have. This is called guaranteed issue. In addition, residents cannot be charged a higher rate for their policy because of their health status. This is called community rating. The New York Insurance Department may be able to help you locate names and phone numbers of possible insurers who will sell you this type of policy. Please contact them for more information.

If you are having a problem with your state-regulated health plan and you are unable to resolve it with the plan directly, file a complaint with the Insurance Department. They may be able to provide you with assistance in reaching a conclusion.

New York Health Insurers Guide Available

The New York Consumer Guide to Health Insurers provides information about the wide range of health care options available in in the state and enables New Yorkers to compare commercial and non-profit health insurers as well as health maintenance organizations (HMOs) on a variety of factors, from services offered to overall consumer satisfaction. This guide can assist you in finding the best health care plan for you and your family.

New York Medicaid - (518) 486-9057

Medicaid is available to anyone who meets income and eligibility criteria. Even if your income meets the criteria, you must fall into one of the eligibility categories in order to qualify. Contact your state Medicaid program for more information.

Healthy New York - (866) 432-5849

The goal of the Healthy NY program is to provide health insurance coverage to eligible uninsured working individuals and self-employed individuals. This program is also available to small businesses that are not currently offering health insurance coverage to their employees. You must meet certain income eligibility criteria to qualify. Please contact Healthy New York for more information.

Child Health Plus (CHPlus) - State Children's Health Insurance Program -
(800) 698-4543

Child Health Plus is the health insurance program designed to provide health insurance to children and teens under age 19 whose family may have too great an income to qualify for Medicaid, but who may not be able to afford health insurance. Visit the Web site to find out if you or your child meets the income guidelines.

New York Family Health Plus - 1-877-934-7587

Family Health Plus is a health care program for uninsured adults between the ages of 19 and 64 who have incomes too high to qualify for New York 's Medicaid program. Family Health Plus is available to single adults, couples without children, and parents with limited incomes. Individuals must meet residency and certain immigration qualifications to be eligible.

If you or your loved one is unable to see a physician due to the cost of care, there may be a local community health clinic in your area. These clinics generally are free or require a very small fee for patients to receive care. Find a clinic in your area.

For those with preexisting conditions, there are advocacy groups working on your behalf. If you have trouble finding one, message me and I'll send you a link.

Also, if any freelancers have had a good or bad experience with certain health insurances, please message me as it'd be helpful to know which ones are working well and which are not.

Hope this helps.

Quick Link to Map for Health Insurance in other States:

http://www.diabetes.org/advocacy-and-legalresources/insurance/overview.jsp

About the author: Maria Dorfner is a veteran broadcaster and the founder of NewsMD Communications, LLC, a full-service production company specializing in health stories.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Maria_Dorfner

Public Health Insurance - An Essential Lifesaver For the American Health System

There is much debate about the type of insurance proposals that will be required in the new health system currently being negotiated in Congress. President Obama has just come out in support of a public health plan, which is opposed by private insurers who say that they could not compete with a public health plan that didn't have to make a profit. Supporters of the public plan proposal correctly say that it would give people more choices and create more competition. Opponents argue that private health plans would go out of business, leaving only an entirely government-run health care system.

Of course all sides are exaggerating and taking up extreme positions. They will all in time compromise and hopefully reach some form of agreement. The sad part is that at present they don't seem to be thinking of the person at the center of all this - the patient. It is widely acknowledged that health care costs far too much in this country, while at the same time at least 47 million Americans are uninsured. So, from a patients perspective, if you do have health insurance, you are paying way too much for it, and getting poor value, and if you don't have it, then you just continue to suffer. What a dreadful choice. What an indictment of America.

The goals of overhauling the health care system are to lower costs and extend care to the uninsured. Obama wants a bill on his desk in October at the latest. Where can Congress begin to compromise, and why is it that Republicans in particular, believe that public health plans are likely to be so dreadful. What is the evidence for this belief beyond their own philosophical ideas. They regularly bring up the supposed ogre of "socialized medicine" whenever public plans are discussed, but there is no evidence whatsoever that countries with more federal control over their health systems, especially in Europe, have worse health outcomes that the USA. In fact the contrary is true, health outcomes are much better overall, and cost a lot less money per capita of population.

As a physician who has lived and worked in the USA, Australia and Britain, and who has an interest in how health services are organized, I think America could move forward in a relatively simple way as long as we always keep the patient at the center of any health system we plan. It is essential that we do not design a health system primarily to protect profit levels for some or all of the various constituents, whether they be providers, health insurers or pharmaceutical companies. We have the opportunity of picking the best parts of other health systems from around the world and including these in the eventual plan to reform American health care, and we should learn from other countries.

What should we do?

Firstly we need a public-private partnership philosophy. Australia is a good example where this works excellently. That means public and private, not just private. American core business and social philosophies are based on capitalist principals so any new approach to health care must combine the need for profits in certain sectors of the health system, with the need to develop a number of core public health services that may be less likely to ever achieve a profit. Funding for care has to involve choice and should be provided in many instances through payment for annual or episodic whole of person care, rather than on individual piece rates as at present. These capitated payment systems work well for Kaiser Permanente, and in Britain. The primary gain from this approach is that it tends to force more resources into the prevention of illness and wellness promotion, rather than into the treatment of illnesses that have already commenced.

The public component of the health care system, seemingly strongly supported by President Obama, would include universal basic health insurance as well as catastrophic care insurance. We know that this type of system works well in America and is widely accepted and popular, because we have the very successful example of Medicare for seniors. Effectively broadening the base of Medicare for other populations would prevent many of the bankruptcies caused by healthcare costs, and would cover many of the current uninsured. Public insurance would then be likely to pay for many emergency and geographically isolated health services, as well as public health services, pre and postnatal and early child care as well as care of some special populations who cannot afford private health insurance such as the unemployed, and certain impoverished or geographically isolated groups. Medicare for seniors would of course continue. These are areas where there will be less competition from private insurers who have typically kept away from them, but of course any private health insurers would be able to enter these markets and compete if they wished.

The private component would be funded with the aid of broader tax incentives or similar financial tools to encourage most people (or companies) to take out private insurance. The aim should be that at least 80-90% of the population should have private insurance, whether it be comprehensive insurance, or top-up insurance to support core government provided insurance. It is important to reach this level of insurance to ensure that we all are financially responsible for at least a reasonable proportion of our health care costs. Here the Republicans are right as it is important that we do not see health care as something that is provided for free. The private sector should offer a full range of services from birth to death, but the industry should be more carefully regulated so that they would, for instance, be prevented from excluding patients on the grounds of pre-existing conditions. They should also have the ability to charge extra for certain "non-essential" services such as cosmetic surgery.

These ideas are taken from what I consider to be the best parts of the American, Australian and British health systems. No country has a perfect health system, and no country ever will. America can afford to choose the best from other countries as it debates how to improve its health care system. Lets hope that Congress can be creative, look outwardly, and not get bogged down in political dogma.

Peter Yellowlees MD has recently published "Your Health in the Information Age - how you and your doctor can use the Internet to work together". available at http://www.InformationAgeHealth.com and most online bookstores. An e-Book for download to iPhones, Blackberry's, PDA's and other mobile devices called "4 Simple steps to Better Health - an Insiders Look" is available at Smashwords at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1271

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Yellowlees

Health Insurance America – You Won’t Visit America Without Health Insurance.

Health Insurance America

If you are visiting any country for business or other purposes, please make sure that you have a visitor insurance. The reasons of that , insurance is vast and it gets better if you visit to America. It is because healthcare services are very expensive if you don’t have a insurance plan.

While health insurance is vital for all yet, but it is important for exchange visitors to apply for such visitor insurance. Visitor visas are non-settler visas and they are issued for people to stay in America for a explicit time . These visas are exchange programs between two countries agree to give visas to people for same purposes like studying and extra.

The participants under this visa are mostly students with special academic levels. trainees, All these non-settler need to have health insurance in America for a specific amount.
It is important to know that there are explicit requirements to apply for such insurance. A lot of time in learning more about those requirements . It will help you when you apply for health insurance.

Health Insurance America

Health insurance is obligatory for J1 exchange visitor and J2 dependants for the complete duration of J program. If you don't have a health insurance after getting to US, your J-1 sponsor will cease.

The requirements of such health insurance in America, you must provides $50,000 medical benefits for every illness or accident and insurance policy must provide $7,500 benefits in case you die in the US. The policy must provide travel expenses in case you need to go back for serious injury. The benefits in this situation should be no less than $10,000.

The author of the articles at http://mbnaamerica.blogspot.com

Health Insurance America