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In 1999, my wife and I were elated to learn that she was pregnant, but our joy turned to panic that same month when we lost our employer-sponsored health insurance. If our baby was born prematurely, it could cost up to $60,000 a day for four months. And this amount didn't include care that a preterm child might need afterward, or any medical care for my wife. Fortunately, our baby was born healthy, and I found a new way to buy affordable health insurance for my family. But in the process of researching our health insurance options, I discovered that I had been wasting thousands of dollars a year by getting health insurance from employers instead of purchasing health insurance myself. America's entire $2 trillion healthcare industry is undergoing the biggest change since health insurance was created during the Great Depression: it is shifting from employer-based health insurance to consumer-directed plans that individuals buy themselves. These new individual/family plans reward you for staying healthy and are better, cheaper, and safer than traditional employer-sponsored health insurance. Most working Americans and their families receive health insurance through their employer's group policy. Among these working Americans, 80 percent are healthy and consume less than $1,000 a year for health care. In contrast, 20 percent have major health problems in their families and, on average, consume more than $25,000 a year for health care. If you are closer to the 80 percent healthy group, new legislation allows you to purchase an “individual or family” policy directly from a carrier that is priced extremely low based on the fact that your actual health costs are closer to $1,000 a year. These individual/family policies typically cost less than half of what you and your employer are paying for your current traditional group policy. Insurance carriers offer this enormous discount because they only accept the 80 percent of applicants who are healthy and will most likely stay that way. Don't despair if you are in the 20 percent group(typically because of the preexisting health problems of one member of your family). In this book I explain ways to get individual coverage for unhealthy family members in “state risk pools” so that the rest of your family can still qualify to be in the 80 percent pool of healthy applicants. Not only can you purchase an individual/family policy for yourself and/or your spouse and children, in 2006 employers can reimburse employees tax-free for the cost of health insurance premiums on individual/family polices. Beginning with the October 2005 benefits enrollment period for 2006, higher deductible Health Savings Account (HSA) plans are being offered by most major employers—HSAs allow you to choose any medical provider and accumulate hundreds of thousands of dollars tax-free for future medical expenses or retirements. The purpose of The New Health Insurance Solution is to show you how to take advantage of these changes. This book explains how to get better, cheaper, safer insurance than you are getting from your employer, save thousands of dollars each year, and protect you, your family, or your business, from the greatest threat to your financial future—our nation's broken employer-based health insurance system.
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| ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR THE NEW HEALTH INSURANCE SOLUTION |
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