Can Someone Live Without A Health Insurance?
In most nations of the world, a majority of the people who enjoy health insurance coverage enjoy it as an employment perk, where an employer – either out of a desire to ‘give the best to their employees’ or out of legal compulsion – provides health insurance coverage to their employees. This is a great arrangement, because employees enjoy what are typically quite good levels of health insurance coverage – as long as they hold their jobs. The problem is, of course that once someone loses their job, they instantly lose their health insurance coverage.
Another established fact is that as the world navigates through the ongoing economic crisis, more and more people are losing their jobs, and with the jobs – of course, their health insurance coverage. This, to a great extent then, explains the number of people searching for information on how to manage life without health insurance coverage, which can be admittedly difficult for someone who had been accustomed to living with full health insurance coverage.
Now in spite of the privatization of the healthcare system eons ago, there remains a considerable number of low cost (or zero cost) healthcare facilities – like the so-called community health centers; and it is by maximizing on these that one gets access to one of the best ways to cope with life without health insurance coverage. Granted, these low cost (or zero-cost) healthcare facilities might not offer the most comprehensive of services, but for ’small ailments’ that one would have to pay for personally (given that they don’t have health insurance), these are facilities one can make use of.
If one happens to lose their health insurance coverage, and they are eligible for the various government initiatives aimed at providing some level of health insurance coverage for the uninsured people who are also financially vulnerable like Medicaid, then applying for them is something they should consider. Applying for these, if one qualifies for them, is nothing to be ashamed of. It does not make one a ‘beggar’ as many people are made to feel, because these initiatives are funded with money from the government coffers, into which we are all contributors.
Should one get ill with a condition that requires expensive prescription medication at a time when they are without health insurance (and can’t personally afford such medication), it would be advisable to consider registering with the pharmaceutical companies for one of the ‘needy person assistance’ programs they run – through which, if they qualify, they can get the prescription medication in question without having to pay for it, or at a highly discounted rate.
Other measures you might consider to help yourself cope with life without health insurance coverage include taking up short term health insurance coverage (whose costs are generally highly manageable) to keep you protected between jobs, as well as registering your children for the (typically state-sponsored) health insurance for kids, so that your kids at least remain covered, even as you try to find the means to get ‘proper’ health insurance coverage.
Before you choose a health insurance plan, you should compare health insurance plans to the the one that has cheapest health insurance plans.