If you have to buy your own health insurance, you may consider an HSA. The HSA allows you to set aside pre-tax money to pay your medical bills, and that money stays until you use it. unused money wil be available for use the in the following years. an HSA must be paired with a catastrphic health insurance - that is, a basic plan that pays nothing until you have already paid out, say, $6k in medical expenses that year from your has plan (or from your own pocket). after that, the catastrophic insurance would pay some of the cost.
The advantages of an HSA are that you can spend the money as you like, you are insured again huge medical bills, and you may build up savings over time that can be used later (say, after you retire).
The disadvantages are that you must pay the full cash price (or whatever you negotiate down to) for every bit of medical care you recieve.
comptalk said: Glad you guys were able to give some good suggestions.
Geez.
I am not sure what you were expecting, most of us are not from New York and so would have no clue about the local market, or even what insurance companies are present in New York. You didn't exactly provide a clear statement of where you have looked already, what type of coverage you want, how much you are willing to pay, and if you have any preexisting conditions which is making your quest to find insurance more difficult. The fact of the matter is individual insurance sucks ass in this country and is one of the big reasons we are having the whole healthcare debate. Plus it's off topic so for every decent response expect at least 10 joke responses. In closing my suggestion is to not get all pissy at message boards, it is bad for your stress levels which will lead to a heart attack, which you can't afford since you are without insurance.
I live in western NYS and the best coverage/price I found was through a local Chamber of Commerce. The plan I selected offers very good coverage at a comparatively low price (although definitely not cheap), and by comparison to everything else I checked was easily the best choice.
Seriously...if you haven't looked into this, it's worth checking.
NYS also offers, and subsidizes, health insurance at very low rates for low-income people and sole proprietors who have not been covered by health insurance for a specified period of time...I believe it's one year. If you qualify, this is almost certainly the cheapest way. Unless, as mentioned, you can somehow latch onto a relative or friend's policy.
I'm in CA and when I was consulting I carried a catastrophic plan via Blue Cross. Can't tell from your post but age, location and existing health conditions may make a difference in pricing. For an individual policy you will likely have to pass a physical in order to be accepted for coverage (this is typically not the case for group coverage).
HSA is a nice option if you have the money to put into it. My employer uses HSA Bank for this purpose and it has been very smooth as far as deposits and use of the accounts by employees.
Are you a member of any organization or group that might offer group coverage? That's where I would look first. hth
In western NYS--at least in the Rochester, NY area--if you meet a local Chamber of Commerce membership requirements (pretty easy)--no physical exam is necessary and there is no pre-existing exclusion stipulation. And if you can afford buying catastrophic health insurance directly from Blue Cross/Shield, the same applies. However, buying direct is very expensive, and for inferior coverage.
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