

HEALTH INSURANCE FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
*WHY DO YOU NEED HEALTH INSURANCE?* Today, health care costs are high, and getting higher. Who will pay your bills if you have a serious accident or a major illness? You buy health insurance for the same reason you buy other kinds of insurance, to pro- tect yourself financially. With health insurance, you protect yourself and your family in case you need medical care that could be very expensive. You can’t predict what your medical bills will be. In a good year, your costs may be low. But if you become ill, your bills could be very high. If you have insurance, many of your costs are covered by a third-party payer, not by you. A third-party payer can be an insurance company, or, in some cases, it can be your employer. *WHAT IS GOING ON?* Health care in America is changing rapidly. Twenty-five years ago, most people in the United States had indemnity insurance coverage. A person with indemnity insurance could go to any doctor, hospital, or other provider (which would bill for each service given), and the insurance and the patient would each pay part of the bill. But today, more than half of all Americans who have health insurance are enrolled in some kind of managed care plan, an organized way of both providing services and paying for them. Different types of managed care plans work differently and include preferred provider organizations (PPOs), health maintenance organizations (HMO’s), and point-of-service (POS) plans. You’ve probably heard these terms before. But what do they mean, and what are the differences between them? And what do these differences mean to you? *WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEAR?* The U.S. Government will be talking a lot about “Consumer Driven” Health Care, Health Saving Accounts, and Deductible Health Care plans this next year. (See the separate reviews on each). F. Darrell Lindsey U. S. State Licensed Agent/Broker CLICK HERE: Business Owners Get Respect