High deductible health insurance

The trend of mass shifting to high-deductible health plans started in 2003. The biggest advantages of HDHPs are considered to be the following:

• Patients are becoming more cost-conscious and that reduces the health care costs
• Insurance premiums became more affordable for low-income and uninsured individuals.

Scientists say that the concept of high-deductible health insurance (HDHP) destabilizes the fundamentals of health insurance, such as cutting costs on medical treatment in order to prevent poverty.

Commonwealth Fund Biennial Survey of Health Insurance has found that 38 percent of adult residents with deductibles of $1000 or more reported that they had cost-related access problems, such as not getting the necessary special treatment, skipping a recommended test.

High-deductible plans are usually very challenging for low-income families. If you make less than 35000 dollars a year, and the deductible of your insurance plan is about 500, than you will most likely experience cost-related access problems.

Medical bill problems are also more common among people who have insurance plans with large deductibles. About 55 percent of those, who make less than $35 000 a year and have more than 500 deductibles will have to take a medical debt.

For uninsured adults, who experience health problems, having high deductibles will be a big financial challenge; moreover, they will have serious financial problems without getting any protection from the insurance plan.

As we see, higher deductibles, though requiring lower premiums, are not very good for low-income individuals.

High-deductible plans that are on the individual health insurance market are less likely to be affordable for uninsured Americans. Statistics show that two-thirds of all uninsured people obtained this status not because they are lazy and do not have time to find suitable insurance, but because their income is less than the poverty level, set by the government. Researchers also found that only 10 percent of people with low income can afford to purchase the premiums that exceed 5 percent of their income.

Some advantages can be still achieved by giving people motivation or incentives to choose high-deductible health insurance (HDHP), e.g. a tax break for high-income individuals and about 6 to 16 billion dollars of budget withholdings every decade.

As a conclusion, high-deductible health insurance (HDHP) can prevent patients from receiving the necessary medical and financial care, but also add financial problems, especially to the low-income households that make less than 35000 dollars a year.

High-deductible plans both solve and make troubles. If you don’t want to look for a good insurance plan forever, just pick one with high-deductible. However, you have to consider one important aspect: if your budget can handle it.

It often happens that people having high-deductibles get into financial “black holes” and can’t recover for long. Medical care has become very expensive nowadays, and you are to decide what kind of insurance policy you can afford! Do not hesitate too long!