The topic of health insurance is a no-brainer for many people these days. Like car insurance, it’s a pain to pay it month after month, but it sure can come in handy. Scores of people will testify that the money they saved by not paying for health insurance was completely overshadowed by the money they were forced to pay out as soon as they required medical attention. Even a minor visit to the emergency room can cost up to thousands of dollars.
A recent example of this principle in action concerns a young woman, fresh into college, who had taken up longboarding in the summer months as a fun method of recreation. It relaxed her, and brought her together with her friends. The price of books and tuition was high enough that she decided against getting life insurance. One day, she was skating down a little driveway, and hit a small bump in the concrete that was hardly visible from above. The longboard shot out from under her, she flew into the air, and landed strangely on her ankle. She had broken a very small bone. She had hoped to save money by not buying life insurance, but she soon realized just what a mistake she had made. Her hospital bills were over a thousand dollars – and this for a brief visit to the emergency room, where she received a plastic boot and a pair of crutches. By making a relatively low monthly payment she might have saved herself a lot of grief.
This young woman’s story is by no means uncommon. Thousands of people every day, in a position to afford health insurance but resistant to the idea of paying, find out the hard way that it’s better to spend money in small increments over a long period of time than to pay money in a large increments all at once.
Health insurance not only covers emergencies, it covers the cost of medication. As prescription drugs rise and rise in costs, health insurance becomes a must. With certain kinds of medication, a bottle of fifteen pills will cost you ten dollars if you’re insured, and seventy-five dollars if you’re not. Health insurance can save you thousands of dollars on medication (whether they be antidepressants, antibiotics, etc.) every year.
Another thing that people don’t consider often enough when weighing the issue of health insurance are those simple sicknesses and ailments that haunt us every summer and winter and send us to the doctor without fail. Flu, allergy, strep throat – these are things that often require professional attention immediately if they aren’t to expand terribly into something much worse. A visit to the doctor, just for a basic checkup, generally costs around a hundred dollars, to say nothing of X-rays and other expensive tests that sometimes have to be performed in even the simplest of situations.
Whether it be for the large things -such as car accidents, bike wrecks, falling down stairs, broken bones – or whether it be for the small ones – colds, allergies, the flu – health insurance will save you thousands of dollars over the long run, and, in the case of some of the larger things, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. As the number of health insurance companies grows, so do your options. You can look online to find the health insurance company that best suits you, the one most willing to fight for your dollars. Paying a monthly health insurance bill doesn’t have to be an overwhelming expense, especially when you think of the potentially really overwhelming expense that could occur otherwise.