Although the health insurance industry removed the public health insurance option from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the law still added a myriad of consumer protections. Among them are preventing companies from denying people coverage for having pre-existing condition, letting young adult children stay on their parents’ or a parent’s healthcare plan until the adult is 25 years old, and giving states funding for providing healthcare to people who cannot afford it.
Despite this, you still need to be a smart consumer when picking a health insurance company, and you should do some things before buying health insurance.
Get an up-to-date credit report
Medical bills can be high so insurance companies will be going through your credit report to see your credit score. If you have a low credit score, they might not want to offer you as good of a plan since they might be worried that you will not be able to pay things like co-pays.
Don’t have gaps in your insurance coverage
Some people try to “save money” by not being insured for a bit, but this actually makes you more expensive to insure afterward because the insurance companies will worry that something may have happened to you while you were off coverage. Also, even though they are not allowed to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they might still try to not pay for it and ignore the law altogether, or claim that it is the responsibility of a prior insurer.
About the Author: Murray Newlands and his company Influence People do blogger outreach for a variety of clients.
