Does your insurance cover emergency operations?
Health insurance is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as" insurance providing compensation for medical expenses." Three main health insurance types offer a financial "safety net" for those times when illness results in taking paid or unpaid leave from work or for covering extra bills for medical treatment. Health insurance payments are calculated by insurance companies using statistics to determine which policy holders are most likely to make claims.
Individual Health Insurance
Individual Health Insurance is purchased from an insurance broker or directly from the insurance company. To qualify, applicants need to provide information about their health history, and some policies require subjects to take a physical health examination. Individual health insurance can be the primary policy or can used to "top up" other schemes (e.g., Medicare) when extra coverage is needed. Less than nine percent of the population uses this method for health insurance, including the self-employed. Advantages of private or individual health insurance include lower payments for healthy individuals. A low-risk applicant (e.g., a young, healthy non-smoker with no family history of serious disease, working in an office) makes a lower insurance payment than an applicant that has serious health issues. Individual health plans also provide more options as to when and where any treatment that is not emergency care (e.g., hip replacement operations) is performed.
Group Health Insurance
The most common type of group health insurance plan is the one offered by employers. Offering competitively priced schemes to workers attracts quality staff and assures a healthier work force. The U.S. government consumer advisory defines group health insurance as "a policy that is purchased by an employer and is offered to eligible employees of the company (and often to the employees' family members) as a benefit of working for that company." Employer's health insurance is the most prevalent type of health insurance, covering 58.5% of the U.S. population (as of 2008). This is due to Federal law which states "No small employer or an individual employee can be turned down by an insurance company for group coverage," meaning even small companies with less than 50 employees qualify. Advantages of group health insurance include lower rates for those covered, since buying insurance in a group policy discounts individual costs and provides wider coverage options (e.g., added dental and mental health coverage) not available to individuals buying policies.
Government Health Insurance
Government health insurance includes country-wide schemes and those offered by individual states. The most common form of public health insurance is Medicare, which in 2008 covered 14.3% of the U.S. population. Medicare provides health insurance coverage for unemployed, disabled, and low-income persons funded by taxes and social security payments. Hospital bills, prescription drugs, and visits to a doctor's office are included in Medicare coverage. Some states offer low-cost health insurance to those who cannot qualify for it elsewhere. An example of a state health insurance scheme is the Pennsylvania "adultBasic" plan.
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