Health Savings Accounts Should Be Available to All Americans

All Americans should have the right to save for current and future healthcare expenses with pre-tax dollars. Health Savings Accounts provide some Americans with precisely that opportunity, but it is too limited in its scope to benefit the majority of the US. I love the concept of Health Savings Accounts (HSA), if you're not familiar with them they are savings accounts in which money can be put away for future medical expenses on a pre-tax basis. In order to be eligible for an HSA you must be covered under a qualifying high deductible health insurance plan (HDHP). These are health insurance policies that typically cost less because they require their holders pay a high deductible (typically greater than $1000 annually). Unfortunately, the eligibility requirement to participate in a health savings account precludes the majority of the population from receiving a privilege that should be as basic as saving for one's own retirement.

In a recent response from my Congressman, he suggested I consider using a sister product, the Flexible Spending Account (FSA). Although beneficial, the benefits of an FSA fall short of the benefits in an HSA; primarily because the balance of unused money in an FSA expires annually where an HSA rolls over from year to year. This is a monumental difference. With an HSA I have a means to cover current and future medical expenses which can accumulate to a retirement vehicle which becomes available for any purpose at age 65. The rollover benefit becomes an even greater benefit when you consider the funds in Health Savings Account are eligible to pay the premiums on Cobra. Contributing to an HSA provides financial resources to use should one lose their job. Americans can use their HSA to pay the necessary 102% of their health premiums through COBRA or they may roll the money into a less expensive high deductible health plan (HDHP) with the resources to meet the high deductible.

Let's look at a couple of case studies.

Dick and Jane

Dick and Jane are engaged. Jane has been submitting $2600 into and HSA for the past five years. During that time she has only consumed $1600 in health care costs that means Jane has been able to build up a health nest egg of $11,400. After they are married Dick begins carrying Jane as a dependent on his health care plan which does not qualify as a high deductible health care plan. Under current laws, Jane would be forced to discontinue contributing to her HSA, but it if all Americans were eligible for this savings incentive she wouldn't have that problem. Instead they could increase their contribution $5,150. After a year, Dick may lose his job, but the family has been able to save $16,550. Their healthcare nest egg provides Dick and Jane with additional options. They may select to continue their current coverage through COBRA or they can select an alternate health care option. If COBRA were to cost $400 a month they can utilize their HSA funds. With these funds they would have the means of paying for coverage for 41 months. They could also choose to purchase independent health coverage. Their $16,550 nest egg minimizes their risk on a high deductible healthcare plan. They could conceivable absorb a $10,000 deductible and reduce their monthly payment to about $200, or half the cost of their cobra payment.

Scott and Laura

In the scenario of Scott and Laura, Scott is a severe asthmatic. His condition leads to a hospital stay about once a year costing about $3000. He must also have continuing medication at a monthly cost of $112. Scott and Laura are both on her employer's group health plan. They pay $112/month with a $500 deductible and a 20% coinsurance. Their annual healthcare responsibility is approximately $2610 with insurance or approximately $4340 without insurance. Their insurance saves them approximately $1700 annually from paying full price on their medical care. Their FSA saves them about 20% (their tax bracket) on their prescription charges. Because Scott and Laura will lose the money in the FSA if they don't spend it by the end of the year, they only save the cost of Scott's prescriptions. Now, if Laura loses her job their healthcare future becomes much less secure because Laura's plan was not HSA eligible, they do not any residual savings from their health care expenses nor were they granted guaranteed tax savings from their medical expenses. If they keep the medical insurance they clearly need through COBRA they now need to pay $400/month. These annual premiums total $4000 alone meaning that Scott and Laura only save about $340 a year by having health insurance. This does not include the cost of any of the co pays. Keeping the insurance could increase their medical expenses to about $6000 a year or $550/month at a time when the family income has been reduced. Scott and Laura have a very difficult choice to make in regards to their healthcare. Should they continue with coverage or should they let the family health insurance lapse?

Had they been able to contribute to an HSA, their scenario may have looked a little different. Scott and Laura would still have the same policy but chose to contribute the maximum allowable to their HSA. From the $5150 they withdrew $2610 for healthcare expenses leaving $2540 to accumulate over for the next year. Over the course of 5 years they have accumulated $12700 in the HSA. If Laura loses her job their options look much more promising. They can more easily absorb costs of COBRA and provide for the costs of their existing coverage for their entire 18 month term of eligibility. By making wise decisions in time of plenty, Scott and Laura would be able to prevent financial devastation or public dependence in the future and still provide the means to maintain their health needs. All health consumers should have the option to participate in an HSA and receive the corresponding tax benefits. The opportunity to participate in an HSA should not be tied to a high deductible health insurance plan. As it is written an HDHP with an HSA discriminates against most Americans, namely, consumers whose employers don't offer a qualified high deductible healthcare plan and those who may have regular health needs which require a more generous health plan including young families who may need maternity or well child care.

Ironically, those ineligible to participate are doubly discriminated against. Not only do they lose the opportunity to financially prepare for the future healthcare needs, but it actually results in having higher healthcare costs. Here's how:

1. High deductible health care plans often attract the healthiest segment of society, and when you remove the healthy consumers from the general insurance pool, rates rise to cover the lost revenue and higher payout per consumer.

2. Non participants must pay deductibles and uncovered health care from post tax dollars or they must try to forecast their annual health expenses through a flexible spending account (FSA). If they underestimate, they are again paying for expenses with post-tax dollars and if they overestimate they lose the unspent balance.

3. Individuals who have continuing healthcare needs are at the mercy of their employer for continued coverage. The loss of employment often means the loss of health care and can bring great personal risk and financial hardship.

By eliminating the requirement that an individual have a HDHP plan, you open the door for many more participants. These are people who need to hedge against risk in their health and financial well-being. When you allow people to pay their insurance premiums with their HSA, you grant them a means of planning for their health future, without discriminating based on their health care needs. Nationally, you increase the savings rate, sending more money into banks, and driving down your uninsured among the unemployed. Fewer people are dependent on government healthcare subsidies because they were able to plan during times of plenty. You open a door for increased retirement savings and, by giving people access to their funds when healthcare is needed, you limit some of the draw on government resources because they don't end up on state sponsored plans.

All Americans should have the right to save for current and future healthcare expenses with pre-tax dollars.

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How to Get Cheap Health Insurance Online in West Virginia

Consider what could happen if you suddenly came down with a severe illness or suffered a catastrophic accident. Within a matter of days you could incur hospital and doctors' bills in the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Without insurance your home could be taken from you, your bank account could be drained, and any other assets you own could be wiped away - all in the blink of an eye.

And yet, for over 50% of the people in West Virginia the cost of health insurance is reported to be a severe financial hardship and fully 16% of the people of West Virginia can't afford health insurance at all.

While we wait for relief it is vital that we find ways of reducing the cost of health insurance ourselves. Purchasing health insurance online is, perhaps, part of the answer since online health insurance generally costs less than health insurance purchased from a brick and mortar business. But simply jumping online with no clear idea of how to lower the cost of health insurance will not solve the problem. We need something more. We need ways of reducing costs initially so that the additional savings we get from purchasing our insurance online can have a real meaning.

Fortunately there are steps that you can take that will help reduce the cost of your health insurance even before you get online.

For example, start by eating a healthy diet and getting some exercise. Yes, this means cutting way, way down on fast food and fried foods and it means eating more fruits and vegetables and it means walking or riding a bike three or four times a week.

It also means that you will have to stop smoking and using chew if you are serious about getting cheap health insurance online or anywhere else in West Virginia.

Your weight is also a factor when looking for cheap health insurance. A portion of your health insurance premium is based on your BMI, or Body Mass Index. The less your BMI the lower your health insurance premium each month. The one ray of sunshine is that if you are able to lose even a few pounds it's possible that you could move down on the insurance company's BMI chart - and if you move down even one level you could, potentially, save hundreds of dollars each year on your health insurance.

Join a group health plan. A group health plan may not be as concerned about smoking and BMI as an individual health plan. If your place of work doesn't offer group health insurance consider any groups, clubs, organizations or associations that you or any member of your family or any friends belong to. If you find a club or organization that offers its members group health consider it seriously.

Join an HMO or a PPO. These are forms of group health insurance that are somewhat less expensive than many other health insurance plans, but HMOs especially limit the doctors that you can see, so unless your current doctor is a member of the HMO that you join, there's a very good chance you will need to change doctors.

Don't participate in extreme sports and don't drive a fast, sporty car.

If you have other forms of insurance it can pay you to consolidate all of your insurance with the same company. In this way you will qualify for a Multi-Policy Discount.

Have your premiums automatically deducted from your checking account each month. The money your company saves on billing you will be passed along to you.

Can you afford to increase your co-payment each time you visit your doctor? If you can afford a 50% co-pay you'll save a bundle on premiums each month. This plan works best for people who do not see their doctor on a regular basis.

Finally, can you afford to increase your deductible? If you can increase your deductible then you will lower your cost of health insurance immediately. However, don't agree to pay more of a deductible each year than you can actually afford to pay.

And this brings us to our final step: buying our health insurance policy online. Yes, it is true that you can get cheap health insurance online in West Virginia, but don't get lazy and stop after looking at just one health insurance price comparison website.

If you are truly serious about finding the cheapest health insurance you can, then you must compare prices on at least 3 different websites. And you must take what you've learned in this article and fill out the forms on all three website EXACTLY the same.

Only in this way can you compare the same health insurance on all three sites - and making a true comparison is the only way to really find the cheapest health insurance.

Once you've made all of your comparisons then the only thing that's left is to review the prices you found and choose the lowest one. By doing your homework and by making your comparisons on a minimum of 3 different websites, you can feel confident that you now know exactly how to get cheap health insurance online in West Virginia and save as much money each month as you possibly can.

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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.

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How to Compare Low Cost Health Insurance in Alabama

Being able to afford health insurance is a big problem for many people here in Alabama. In fact, the problem has become so severe that close to 17% of all Alabama residents cannot afford health insurance of any kind.

Fortunately the state of Alabama has made low-cost health insurance available to many people who might not otherwise be able to afford it. Children under the age of eighteen, college students, pregnant women and others may be able to qualify for low-cost health insurance through one or more state-sponsored programs.

For those individuals who do not qualify for a state-sponsored program there are still several simple things you can do that may help to reduce the cost of your monthly health insurance premium. And once you know what things you can do to lower the cost of your health insurance, then it will be time to get online and compare the cost of your premium-saving policy at every health insurance company that sells policies in Alabama until you have found the very lowest cost possible for the insurance you need.

Let's start with some lifestyle changes. These are the most difficult things for most people to do, even though they can potentially save the most on your health insurance.

Don't smoke or use chew or any other tobacco product. You know in your heart of hearts that tobacco products are not good for your health, and insurance companies know this too. That's why they charge tobacco users anywhere from 20% to 50% more for their health insurance than they charge non-smokers.

Losing weight is even more difficult than stopping smoking for most people, but if you are overweight you are going to pay more for your health insurance. Again, this is simply a fact of life. The good news is that losing even a small amount of weight can potentially drop you down on the insurance company's weight chart and can potentially save you hundreds of dollars each and every year in premium payments. Every little bit can potentially help.

Are your weekends filled with extreme or dangerous sports or hobbies? As fun and exciting as they may be, the fact is you are going to pay more for health insurance if you put your life and health at risk unnecessarily. The same goes for driving a fancy sports car.

And were you aware that your credit rating can also affect how much you pay for your health insurance? As strange as it may seem, the better your credit score the lower your health insurance premium.

Group health insurance is always less expensive than individual health care, plus group plans will often overlook smoking, weight and some pre-existing conditions that would drive the cost through the roof if you were purchasing an individual policy. If your place of employment does not offer a group plan start asking around at any club, organization or association you belong to. You may be surprised to find that some group you never even thought about offers its members group health insurance. Ask your friends and co-workers if any of them belong to a group, club or association that offers group health insurance - and then see if you can join. Ask if any religious organization you belong to offers its members group health insurance.

Look into joining an HMO a PPO or some other form of health maintenance organization. If your favorite doctor is not part of an HMO then you may have to switch doctors, but often you can keep your same doctor if you join a PPO. See if one of these types of groups makes economic sense to you.

If you own a home-based business it may be possible to qualify for group health insurance even if your only employee is a spouse. Ask your insurance agent if this is possible in your case. But even if group health is not a possibility, it still may be possible to deduct your health insurance payments from your taxes if you own your own business - and the tax savings could help offset the cost of your premiums to the point where health insurance is more affordable than you thought.

What about your co-pay and your deductible? If you can increase your co-payment and/or your deductible you can lower the cost of your health insurance. Obviously increasing your co-pay and/or your deductible must be considered carefully as any increase in either represents cash that is coming out of your pocket.

It's finally time for you to take the tips and tricks you picked up from this article and use them when filling out the form on at least 3 of the websites which allow you to compare health insurance prices among the different insurance companies.

Make sure that you fill out the form exactly the same way on all three of the comparison websites you've chosen and then simply pick the company with the lowest cost (being careful to choose a company that you feel confident will still be around when you need them), and your job is done!

You have now compared low cost health insurance in Alabama, you've picked the lowest-priced company and you can feel good about the fact that you are getting the coverage you need at a price you can afford.

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Health Reform Has a History of Failure

Health care reform is on everyone's mind. It's an idea, they say, whose time has come. The cost of health insurance is out of control. 40 plus million Americans cannot afford or cannot qualify for health insurance.

But health care reform has been here before. Actually, about every 15 years there is a push for reforming health care in America. It started way back in 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party introduced a platform calling for national health insurance for industry.

In 1934 as part of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt considered proposing universal health coverage as part of the Social Security Act. Presidents as diverse as Truman, Carter, Ford, George H.W. Bush and Clinton have all introduced various proposals for health care reform. Universal health coverage is always the stated goal. All the proposals put forth by all these administrations, dating back to the early 1900's have only thing in common-failure.

In 1943 President Truman proposed a single insurance plan that would cover all Americans. His plan allowed for public subsidies for the poor. This universal, comprehensive plan was to be run as part of Social Security. But Truman was faced with an economy that was transitioning from a war time economy to a peace time economy. For a time Truman lost the confidence of the general public. Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress in 1946 and branded Truman as a lame duck.

But Truman campaigned in 1948 on a promise to extend the New Deal and specifically targeted Congressional Republicans who has opposed national health insurance. Truman defeated these Republicans and seemed to have a mandate from the people to implement national health insurance. But despite having a Congress that had a Democratic majority, Truman could not pass his health reform plan. His plan failed because powerful Southern Democrats, all of whom held key leadership positions in Congress, feared that federal involvement in health care would lead to desegregation of hospitals that still separated patients by race.

Labor unions also played a part in the defeat of Truman's plan. The AFL-CIO supported the plan for universal coverage as did the UAW. But then, the UAW negotiated a deal with General Motors that included payment by GM of health insurance and pensions. Unions then believed that they could negotiate better benefits for their members than they could get under a federal universal health plan and they abandoned their support of universal care.

The AMA also opposed the Truman plan but they based their opposition on the unpopular concept of socialized medicine. As anti-communist sentiment rose, the public support for universal health care declined. Most large associations including the Chamber of Commerce, the ABA and the American Hospital Association supported the concept of voluntary and private health insurance. This was also the position favored by most of the nation's media.

Universal health insurance failed again in 1950. By that time the employer sponsored plans were deeply entrenched as an employee benefit. This was the time that insurance companies began to experience rate premiums. The result of this new rating system was that older, sicker people found it harder to get affordable coverage. In 1960 Congress passed the Kerr-Mills Act. This Act provided federal funds to the states to cover the health costs of the elderly who were too poor to afford health insurance. But this Act, with all its well meaning hope, failed completely because by 1963, only 28 states had agreed to participate and even those states did not budget correctly to support the plan. This Act became the precursor to Medicare and Medicaid.

From 1970 through 1976 more competing plans were proposed But compromises came and went and no significant bill ever reached the House floor because of lack of Committee consensus. President Ford withdrew his attempt at universal health reform fearing that it would make inflation worse. President Carter campaigned on the promise of a comprehensive national health plan but once elected shifted his priorities to cost containment, specifically hospital cost control, and told the American people that national health insurance would have to wait until the economy was stronger.

About that time, Senator Edward Kennedy introduced a new proposal which called for private health insurance companies to compete for customers. The private plans would sell an insurance card to be used for hospital and physician care. The cost of the card would depend on income and employers would be expected to cover the majority of the cost for their employees. The federal government would pick up the cost of the card for the poor. Neither the Carter nor the Kennedy proposal made it through the Congress.

The Clinton plan also supported universal health insurance through the enforcement of individual and employer mandates. The government would control the competition between private insurance companies The Health Care Task Force, chaired by Hillary Clinton when she was first lady, gave President Clinton a complex plan in September 1993. Despite a Democratic Congress, the size and complexity of the plan slowed its progress through Congress and lost the interest of the general population.

Now in 2009, another administration is proposing health care reform. The White House has created the Office on Health Care Reform. Members of Congress are polishing up their own creations for solving this problem. The administration believes that popular opinion will compel our elected officials to end what might be considered a national embarrassment of having millions of American unable to afford or have access to quality health insurance. But as far back as the 1930's, public support quickly began to fail as the insured were advised that the goal would only be achieved if they contributed more to the cost, either directly or through some added taxes.

The United States spends twice as much per capita as the average of the 10 next richest countries in the world. Yet, despite this expenditure, 1 out of 6 Americans under the age of 65 are uninsured and/or individually uninsurable.

One of the problems facing reform is that the 80% or so of American who have health insurance are generally happy with the care they receive. They like their doctors and the freedom to make their own choices when it comes to doctors and hospitals. Most think they already pay too much for health insurance. Most believe, and there is evidence to support this belief, that the red tape and the administrative expenses of their health insurance plan are part of the reason their cost has increased. Why can't someone fix that, they wonder?

The insured fear change. Any proposal that threatens their current insurance arrangement will be regarded with deep suspicion. Everyone is aware of the power of special interest groups. Our political system is set up in such a way as to frustrate action on any large and socially controversial idea. Congressional committees wield enormous power. The interest of each state in controlling its own health insurance programs can, in itself, bring down the whole idea of reform.

We have had some success in improving access to health care for million through some of the Children's Health Insurance Programs. But note that most of the programs to cover uninsured children are state based.

We seem to be unable to learn from past mistakes or take advantage of the concepts that actually have worked. Anyone who has done even a cursory study of history should realize that we have been here before.

Yes health reform is back again. What will happen this time? Stay tuned.

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How To Save on Health Insurance

With health care costs soaring through the roof, the cost of health insurance premiums are increasing as well. Health insurance is a necessity, however, when you consider the costs of one visit to the emergency room, surgery to set a broken bone, scans, lab and other costs. When your budget is limited, how can you keep the costs of your health insurance premiums down? There are several steps you can take to reduce your health insurance costs and still maintain adequate medical coverage when you need it.

First step is to consider what health insurance options you have. Does your employer offer a group medical benefit? Many employers (and/or labor unions) offer health benefits to full-time employees. Group health insurance is usually the cheapest way to get medical coverage; an employer can negotiate with health insurance companies to get a group health plan at cheaper rates. In addition, many employers will pay part of the premium, reducing your health insurance cost even further. Another consideration is whether your spouse has health coverage available through their employer? If so, compare your health benefits plan to that of your spouse, and decide which health plan is the better buy. It may be possible to have one spouse carry family health insurance coverage and the other drop their health benefits. Many employers have multiple health insurance options, so review these plans as well. Choose the health plan that best meets your needs at the cheapest rate.

If no health insurance coverage is available through your employer, there are other ways to obtain health insurance coverage. Individual and family private health insurance policies are available. Shop and compare benefits and premiums from each health insurance plan. If you and your family are generally healthy, the new Health Savings Account (HSA) may be worth consideration. The HSA is an account that allows you to save tax-free dollars for your medical/health expenses. Similar to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA), you are limited in the amount that you are allowed to contribute each year; however, with the HSA, withdrawals for health expenses are not penalized, and no tax is paid on the withdrawal. When paired with a health insurance policy that has high deductibles and low rates, the HSA may be ideal for you. Save money in the HSA for deductibles and co-pays, and you're set.

For those over 65 or permanently disabled, Medicare is available through the federal government. The original Medicare is an 80/20 plan (they pay 80% of eligible expenses and the insured pays 20%) with an annual deductible and a monthly premium. Supplemental health plans are available to cover this deductible and co-pay. These supplemental health plans are usually private and the insured pays a premium. In addition to the original Medicare plan, there are Medicare HMOs. In these Medicare HMO health plans, the Medicare premium is paid to an HMO to provide benefits to the insured. HMO plans are more restrictive in that patients must get care through a network provider, but often these plans cover more prescription drugs and preventive care than original Medicare does.

Recently some employers have offered lower premiums to employees who do not smoke cigarettes. This is currently a controversial topic for some, but it certainly may begin a trend. In the future, employers and their health insurance providers could offer reduced premiums for employees who maintain normal weight, exercise regularly, and receive certain wellness benefits. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle lowers the risk to the health insurance company that they will be paying big bucks in health care down the road. And health insurance, as any other insurance, is all about risk.

Bottom line: going without health insurance coverage is a big risk for you. Find health coverage that you can afford just in case Murphy comes knocking at your door!

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Why Should I Work With a Health Coach?

Why should you work with a health coach? What is a health coach and how do you use the services of one? Five years ago a health coach was an unknown profession except in the world of corporate executives or large corporations. Now it is a growing business with health coaches, wellness coaches and fitness coaches. In our age of growing baby boomers people are turning to coaches more and more for help with health or fitness related issues that they cannot resolve. We are in a movement of people acquiring more knowledge about health risks and wanting to make sound choices in their lives and prevent catastrophic problems. People are living longer each year and it is of utmost importance to keep ourselves healthy to live those extra years with a good quality of life.

A health coach is there for you to be your partner in taking charge of your health, recognizing bad choices and teaching you to make wise choices. Included in the job description of a health coach is the training that they incorporate into an action plan for you. They empower you, support you, motivate and inspire you, encourage you and challenge you.

A health coach gives you a new approach to your lifestyle in terms of getting fit, understanding what beneficial habits are and learning to stop non-beneficial habits. You and the coach focus on health changes you need to make and also on managing chronic health conditions enhancing your life.

There are some important points to consider when you are trying to stay healthy, reach a fitness or nutritional goal or manage a chronic health issue. Listed are some points to consider;

1. You need to have a goal to reach. That goal is specific for each individual. Examples would be a goal to lose 10 pounds, a goal to increase your endurance so you can go hiking for 5 miles with your kids, a goal to learn to eat nutritionally and decrease junk food, a goal of becoming more fit when you have severe arthritis. You can see what I mean, that goals are different for everyone. When you work with a health coach you and the coach decide what the goal should be, and put it in some concrete fashion. Concrete fashion could be a contract, written goals with specific time lines, you get the idea. Your coach works for you and with you to persevere towards that or those specific goals. Your coach should be able to motivate you, understand what needs you may have and continually promote progress. Your coach should also be able to listen to you and respect your concerns and issues that may be holding you back from reaching your goals.

2. Any wellness program has a fitness program. Your health coach works with you to research and plan for a specific program. The coach also motivates and inspires you to perform the program and push yourself.

3 A change in lifestyle is usually necessary to reach a goal of optimum health. A health coach has the knowledge to promote those changes in you and is your advocate when you are working against yourself.

4. Your health coach educates you about wellness, nutrition and fitness. Your coach should be knowledgeable about anatomy, physiology, disease processes and many other facets about health and disease. A health coach should provide you with informative articles, news, or places of value to you in bringing you to your optimum level of wellness.

5. Your health coach should have the knowledge base to understand your health and potential health issues and involve a medical professional when necessary.

6. A health coach should be persistent, dedicated to you and patient with you.

A health coach is a motivating and inspiring force behind you. A health coach wants to bring you to your optimum level of health. Teaming up with a health coach can help you to achieve success, to emulate models of health and have an advisor who supports you and is a positive change agent in your life.

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Choosing the right home insurance

Preparing for home insurance simply as willing umbrella before it rains. however the house insurance would not give as simple as we tend to prepare an umbrella before traveling, plenty of stuff you ought to seek for in selecting a home insurance. Here are the things that ought to be a consideration in selecting a home insurance.

• Choose the house insurance product of a healthy company, experienced and bonafide
• Determine how concerning the handling of claims filed and also the ministry. Insurance workplace ought to be simply accessible, together with its employees, especially when filing a claim.
• Think about the advantages to be gained is definitely worth the premium paid or not. The greater the advantages obtained with an occasional premium the higher. don't be tempted by the supply of cheaper premiums.
• Choose insurance products that provide profit sharing or no claims bonus. This technique provides the advantages of sharing the excess unused premium payment of claims due to the small value.
• Compare with similar products from alternative insurance companies. seek for complete info on insurance companies to be selected
• Be honest in determining the value of the house. don't ever raised or lowered, as a result of the loss of your own future.

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