My Personal Finance Blog

CHIP stands for Children’s Health Insurance Program and was initiated by the Congress in 1997. It is a special program connecting federal and state government with the aim to provide additional health coverage to uninsured children and future mothers who don’t have the financial abilities to purchase a separate individual policy but still don’t qualify for Medicaid.

On February 4, 2009, CHIP was expanded by President Obama’s passing of law on Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA). This expansion raises the number of children within CHIP from 7 million to 11 million and extends its payment through 2013.

Who qualifies for CHIP?

CHIP is something between Medicaid and private insurance plans. Those who have too much income for Medicaid but still can’t afford private plans may use CHIP.

CHIP eligibility rules are different in each state. Still, in the majority of states, children who are younger than 18 years old and whose families earn $44,100 or less a year are eligible for CHIP.

The number of family members strongly influences the income value making it possible to opt for CHIP. For instance, a family of four can earn up to $44,100 while a family of two the upper income limit for being eligible for CHIP is $29,140 a year.

What is the cost of CHIP?

It all depends on the place you live in and how much your family earns, but in most cases you will have to pay a small fee on a monthly basis in order to receive coverage. In some states you may also encounter start-up fees and co-payments for each service received. For instance, it will cost you $35 to start the coverage in Colorado and each doctor visit or service will cost you between $2 and $5.

With CHIP health insurance you get very low fees for the services, but they are quite often related to your family’s income. For example, the monthly fee for CHIP coverage in the state of New York is only $9 and children from families with higher income may apply. In the state of Illinois however, having an income between $44,000 and $66,156 per year will result in a $40 monthly premium paid for each child.

What are the benefits provided by CHIP?

The list benefits you can get through CHIP varies from one state do another. However there’s a minimum set of requirements the program is obliged to provide regardless of the location:

• regular check-ups
• immunizations
• dental services
• hospital care
• emergency room services
• laboratory and x-ray visits

As said earlier, in some states you will be required to pay certain fees for getting the coverage or cover a part of services provided through CHIP. Still, it is a strict requirement that preventive care is absolutely free in all states through CHIP.

CHIP can be a possibility to get cheap health insurance for those who really need it. Children are very important to us and having their health protected is very crucial for parents. Don’t try to save money on health insurance coverage for your children because there are programs like CHIP and Medicaid that can help you if your income doesn’t allow you to get medical coverage from a private insurance company.

Fee-for-Service or indemnity plans are the oldest type of health coverage out there, providing you with the greatest extent of flexibility. You are absolutely free to choose the doctor, specialist, surgeon or even the place you will receive your medical service from and it doesn’t require any approvals or referrals from other institutions. So what’s the catch?

The drawback of Fee-for-service plans is that they are quite costly and usually have higher deductibles than managed care plans. Besides, you will also have to pay a large part of your actual medical bill out of pocket. That’s the price you have to pay in order to obtain the flexibility provided by these plans. But this doesn’t mean that there are completely no restrictions with fee-for-service plans.

For instance, fee-for-service health insurance plans will not provide coverage for preventive healthcare services, meaning that any vaccinations, regular check-ups and physical exams will be paid for entirely out of the customer’s pocket. This makes fee-for-service plans quite inconvenient for families who need regular medical services and doctor consulting.

Fee-for-service plans require an annual deductible to be paid in order to receive the coverage benefits from the insurance provider. Once you do so, your medical expenses are distributed between you and the insurance carrier. You will usually pay something between 20% and 30% of the entire service fee and your insurance company will cover the rest. So it’s really important to choose a plan that has a smaller co-insurance (the part you have to pay out of pocket) before actually purchasing it.

With most fee-for-service plans you also have the so-called “caps” that are basically the upper limits of your yearly deductibles. These can be anything from $1,000 to $5,000 not taking your monthly premiums into account. So it’s better to see what your plan carries before signing it if you really want cheap health insurance with fee-for-service.

On the other hand, fee-for-service plans offer comprehensive and timely coverage when you need it, especially when there’s a medical emergency. You are completely free of the bureaucratic restrictions and setbacks of typical managed care plans that can turn down any desire to receive medical assistance in the first place. However, bear in mind that fee-for-service plans won’t be suitable and attractive for everyone. If you want to get comprehensive coverage for preventive care or have a large family with diverse healthcare needs you better investigate managed care plan options instead of indemnity plans.

And don’t forget about comparison shopping when purchasing fee-for-service coverage. Try to get as many health insurance quotes from different providers as possible and compare them in detail. You will be surprised to find out that different companies have different premiums, “caps” and co-payments that will all contribute to the final cost of your insurance coverage. So it’s always better to take some time comparing you options rather than complaining that you have a costly insurance plan after purchasing it.

Health insurance has become one of the largest monthly expenses for the vast majority of Americans. Not only has it become quite expensive, but for many, health insurance isn’t even available because they simply don’t make enough money to fit health insurance into the budget. This has left hundreds of thousands of Americans without adequate health coverage, including many children. For these reasons, health insurance has also become one of the biggest concerns for most people in the coming elections. So, why has health insurance become so expensive?

The first thing you need to understand about health insurance companies is that they are businesses whose sole interest is to make money by providing a service. In order to make money, these companies must turn a profit by bringing in more money than they spend. In today’s regulatory environment, along with the increased number of lawsuits related to health care, the cost of doing business in the health insurance industry has skyrocketed. These companies, in turn, have had to raise rates to accommodate those additional costs in order to keep making a profit.

That’s not to say that health insurance companies are completely honest with you about just how much health insurance is going to cost you. Most health insurance companies quote premiums based on age. You’ve seen the television ads that offer health insurance for a mere $129 per month for a 29 year old non-smoker. While that sounds like a very reasonable rate, there is more to this than meets the eye.

In order to get the rest of the story, so to speak, you’d need to look at the actual policy and the so-called “fine print.” In order to qualify for that low $129 rate, you’d have to be a perfectly healthy person whose never gotten sick in the past and have absolutely no reason to need health insurance in the first place. In short, they can offer this rate because there is little to no risk that the company will have to pay out any kind of benefit to this person.

Another thing you might not notice from just watching the advertisement is the size of the deductible. For the rate mentioned above, the deductible is likely to be somewhere around $1000. For other policies, the deductible can be as high as $5000.

So, what is a deductible, you might ask? The deductible in an insurance policy is the amount of money you must pay out of pocket before the insurance company will start paying out benefits. Usually, the deductible does not apply to all health care expenses, so you have to pay careful attention as to whether the policy is worthwhile in your particular situation. In some cases, you would spend less money just paying for health care services out-of-pocket than actually purchasing health insurance because of the deductible.

Another thing that might raise the price of insurance coverage is a pre-existing condition. This is any condition that existed before you purchase coverage with any specific health insurance company. In many cases, you may not be able to get coverage for that condition at all, unless you can prove that you have had continuous care for that condition during the time in which you had no insurance. Even if it is covered, you can be assured that it will cost you more money for it.

Because of all of these variables, most people wind up with far higher premiums than those low rates advertised on TV. In some cases, people may not even be able to get insurance at any price, due to the perceived risk to the insurance company. In many cases, the resultant premium is just simply too high to fit into an individual’s budget, and so they continue on without health coverage.

High insurance premiums are a fact of life in these times, and are likely to remain so for a long time to come. The only way to change this is to fundamentally change the approach to providing health care in this country, by socializing the health care system. This, however, comes with its own set of problems that can be worse than the current system in many respect. The bottom line is that there are no easy answers to solving the health care problems in this country. The only thing you can do is to be aware of all the issues surrounding the problem and make your decision based on facts, and not what the talking heads on television are trying to tell you.

Consumers of health care coverage often pay too much for protection because they hold common misconceptions. Not understanding when employer-sponsored insurance is better than family medical protection and when it is not, making the wrong decisions about low deductible health coverage and not knowing an insurance agent’s role can be costly.

If you have ever shopped for a car you probably learned that that if you invested more effort researching cars, wind up spending less money for your automobile. Medical care insurance is no different. Knowing more about medical insurance can help you lower your costs.

Group health insurance is often. but not always, better than individual or family health insurance. Frequently it is a more expensive policy with lower benefits. Often a plan you can get on your own is much cheaper and also better..

Non group medical care coverage policies that you can buy without being part of a group is usually better-priced and has better benefits for people who are healthy. This is because medical care insurance companies are allowed to deny coverage to those who are less healthy for these types of policies. This means that the insurance company has fewer claims associated with the non-group policies. Consumers pay less for them.

Buying a contract on your own can give you more choices. If you are unhappy with the choices offered through your group medical plan, an individual policy may be available that has the features you want.

Buying low or zeo deductible medical protection contracts is often a costly mistake. Medical coverage policies that have 0 or no deductibles are usually too costly.

They sometimes offer better reimbursement than high deductible policies but sometimes the contract wording is misleading. Deductibles aren’t the only cost share. You may have a low deductible on a contract, but a high coinsurance or high copays. Your expenses might be thousands of dollars in cost shares for a zero deductible health care insurance plan.

High deductible policies, on the other hand, are usually much less expensive and will usually have similar levels of reimbursement for the big stuff. Most of the benefits you will receive in the hospital for a long admission period can be similar whether you choose a low deductible plan or a high deductible policy.

Being concerned about insurance broker fees can also mean you pay more than you should. Medical insurance agents are not allowed to charge you any fees. Their commissions are paid by the insurance company because the agent lowers the insurance carrier’s expenses by reducing what they have to pay for advertising and for their employee-agents.

A medical insurance agent can improve your shopping experience by giving you objective advice about the different insurance carriers. He or she can also save you a lot of time by giving you prices and information for the plans offered by several companies all at once.

Having a greater understanding of employer-sponsored health protection, deductible choices and a medical insurance broker’s role can save you both time and money. Learning more about medical care insurance can result in your getting a more affordable policy that is better for your needs and the medical insurance needs of your family.