Archive for Health care
Health Insurance – Options for Alternative Coverage in Health Care
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- Image by Truthout.org via Flickr
If you cannot afford health insurance one of the cheapest way to purchase a health insurance plan could be through an employer, but if this isn’t an option for you here are some other choices.
If you have been fired from a job or you previously had health insurance you may be eligible to continue your coverage through COBRA insurance for up to 18 months. You have to pay for the entire cost of the insurance yourself, so this may be an expensive choice. However, you won’t have to worry about changing healthcare providers.
If COBRA isn’t an option for you, you need to start looking for the cheapest insurance plan you can find that will still offer the coverage you need. First, consider how much coverage you need. If you are young and in good health you can save money by choosing a major medical plan rather than opting for full coverage. Major medical insurance covers larger expenses such as surgery or injury, but you pay for smaller expenses such as routine office visits yourself.
Some other ways to lower your health insurance costs is choosing a PPR or HMO plan, selecting higher deductible on co-payment amounts and kicking bad habits like smoking, and beginning new habits such as exercises. Also, when you are getting the insurance make sure you know of the discounts which apply to you. For example, if you are a senior citizen, have some disability or maybe even a bright college student, you get special discounts from the health insurance companies.
- Image via Wikipedia
While much has been written about the H1N1 “swine flu”, we think some concise information is worth providing.
Flu activity is widespread- it has essentially affected residents of every state. The H1N1 strain of flu virus is turning out to be the perfect storm of illnesses because for certain high-risk groups of people it can be fatal, many are not taking it seriously, there are serious shortages of vaccine and government at all levels is not doing an effective job of managing distribution of the limited amounts of vaccine that are available.
As of the end of last month, there have been about 3,000 laboratory-documented cases of H1N1 in Connecticut, but since most people with flu symptoms don’t seek medical care, we suspect the number of cases is much higher. About 350 of those cases included hospitalization. On the vaccine availability end of things, as recently as the end of last month, Connecticut was receiving only about 25% of the doses it ordered.
National vaccine allocations are done based on population distribution by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) – the states with greater populations will receive larger numbers of doses. But nationally, all dose shipments are falling far short of needs.
Naturally, our Federal Government is pointing fingers at itself, saying that its performance is unsatisfactory and that the entire supply chain needs to be overhauled before the next breakout. Well, thanks for that helpful information, is all we can say. We’ll be sure to file it in the same folder we keep our New Orleans / Hurricane Katrina archives in.