by Tricia
We currently have a decent health insurance plan through Blue Cross Blue Shield. Because it is an individual plan, and not one sponsored by my employer, we pay 100% of the premium. At a little over $400/month, it takes up a good chunk of our income.
At the time, there were cheaper plans available through other insurance companies. I ended up going with Blue Cross because I’ve dealt with them in the past and have had good experiences with them. They also covered childbirth, and none of the other plans covered that unless you added an expensive rider to their policy.
While we still want to have another child, I don’t know when I’ll be ready, so perhaps it’s time to look into a cheaper health insurance policy for a while.
The one place I know to go (and it’s where I shopped before) is ehealthinsurance.com. You plug in a few bits of information about yourself and your family and you get a listing of policies that would work in your area.
I found a comparable plan for a little less than $200/month. That would reduce our health insurance costs by 50%. At first glance, it looks like there will be some reduction of benefits, but catostrophic events would be covered. Nowadays, one visit to the ER for a broken bone can eat up the deductible for many policies. As long as we have money in a savings account that can cover a yearly deductible I think we will be okay.
I haven’t applied for the new policy yet, since I haven’t had the time to really drill down and compare the two policies side by side. If we switch, I want to make sure of what we are getting into. While saving $200/month would really help our financial situation, possibly losing some health benefits is something to really think over.
