The importance of children's health insurance cannot be stated strongly enough. Our children, besides the fact that they are precious and rely on us adults to provide for them, are also the future of our nation and some day will be taking care of us as we grow into our elderly years.
Ten years ago, then President, Bill Clinton, signed into law the SCHIP program. SCHIP stands for "State Children's Health Insurance Program". This program has been incredibly successful since it's inception, helping over 6 million poor children get health care that they may not have gotten otherwise. Unfortunately, SCHIP is running out of money and the initial 10 year run of the program is up in September of 2007. 14 states have already run out of funding, while others have hurriedly passed new budgets in order to keep the program alive for the children of their low income families.
The SCHIP program was originally designed to provide help to working families whose income was too high to qualify for Medicaid coverage, but not substantial enough to afford private health insurance.
Although it appears that the program will be renewed again, the question is the amount of federal funding that it will receive. The biggest problem up to this point has been certain states running out of money.
Unfortunately, even as successful as the SCHIP program has been, there are still over 50% of our kids out there that have no children's health insurance. So what other options are there? Let's take a look.
#1. Purchase an inexpensive discount plan. These plans are not insurance. They only provide discounts on routine medical care. Many of these plans are affordable and they have been known to significantly reduce the amount of hospital care with their negotiation tactics.
#2. Raise your deductible to the highest level. I realize that this means paying for your basic children's health care out of your own pocket, however, think about this for a moment before you scoff at the idea. How many times a year do you actually take your child to the doctor? 1-2 times is about average for most. Most people have some amount of annual deductible anyway so you'd be paying that out of pocket first, right? Even when your policy kicks in most have an 80/20 co-pay, right? Well, this means that you're going to have to pay something anyway, regardless of what you do. By raising your deductible you'll substantially lower your monthly premiums and cover yourselves in the event of an emergency. Something to think about when you decide to buy children's health insurance.
No comments:
Post a Comment