A Food Fun Travel Guest Post
Healthcare emergencies are inevitable and unpredictable, causing troublesome financial upheaval for many of us. Besides, medical treatment inflation and access to quality and adequate medical facilities can also be financially strenuous.
This reality has been a long-standing concern, but many have only realized this after the emergence of COVID-19. Ironically, thanks to the current global pandemic, several people started to understand why having good health coverage is crucial.
Why does health coverage really matter? Here are the reasons why:
Health Coverage Offers Financial Security
Health insurance can serve as your safety net if you unexpectedly get injured or fall sick. It can help you cover any unexpected and expensive out-of-pocket healthcare costs, such as doctors’ consultations, diagnostics tests, medicines, emergency care, hospitalization, and even surgeries.
It’s important to know that medical costs are much costlier than expected. What’s more, they can add up very quickly, leaving you with an enormous financial burden. For instance, keep in mind and consider the following facts:
- A trip to the emergency room as an adult can already cost you $700 on average and may increase up to $5,000. This doesn’t include tests, medicines, and hospitalization.
- The treatment for a broken leg is around or over $7,500.
- Childbirth can cost up to $8,800 on average or more than $10,000 if C-section delivery.
- A hip replacement can have a total cost of up to $32,000.
In contrast, based on Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2020 Employer Health Benefits Survey, the annual health coverage for a family of four averaged up to $21,342. However, employers picked up 73% of that amount.
In other words, employees only contributed an average of $5,588 toward the annual health insurance premium. This cost is more economical than how much you might pay for several trips to the hospital and buying prescribed medicines.
Health Coverage Safeguards Your Family
Health coverage ensures that your family can get immediate and quality medical treatments and services if anything happens to them. Specifically, if you opt for a family health insurance plan, you, your legal spouse, dependent children, dependent parents, and even dependent parents-in-law will get similar high coverage under one plan.
Despite covering multiple people, family medical insurance is more affordable than buying separate policies. It can be a great health insurance solution for your entire family, especially if you can’t qualify for medicare under 65 or don’t have a plan through an employer.
Health Coverage Protects Your Savings
With health coverage, you can manage your and your family’s medical expenditures better without dipping into your savings. It’s even possible to not worry about reimbursements and just get hospitalized at no cost since many health insurance companies offer cashless medical treatments.
Moreover, health insurance can provide tax benefits, further increasing your savings. This benefit is called Health Coverage Tax Credit. You can have up to 72.5% of your qualified health coverage premiums paid in advance to your insurer each month if you’re eligible. As a result, you can save more money from your monthly out-of-pocket premiums.
Health Coverage Gives Access to Preventive Care
One common reason why people hesitate to invest in health insurance is that they believe they’ll lose all their premiums if they don’t get sick and receive any health care. Others even thought that health insurance companies or even other insurers are scams. However, they’re wrong.
You and your family can take advantage of several health insurance perks even without falling sick or getting injured. One example of it is no-cost preventive services, such as:
- Diagnostics tests for hypertension, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol);
- Cancer screenings, such as colonoscopies (tests on the large intestine) and mammograms (tests on breasts);
- Pregnancy care and well-child care visits;
- Vaccinations against diseases like flu, measles, polio, or meningitis; and
- Counselings on weight loss, healthy diet, treating depression, quitting smoking or drinking, and other topics.
Health Coverage Protects You Against Lifestyle Diseases
Lifestyle diseases are health problems that are primarily linked to a person’s day-to-day life habit. They’re typically caused by living in polluted areas, gadget addiction, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy eating habits, stress and other undisciplined ways of living.
They can further result in several chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which may cause near-life-threatening consequences. Common examples of these NCDs are geriatric diseases, such as diabetes and stroke, which are now rampant among people under 45 due to our modern lifestyles.
While dealing with lifestyle diseases with precautionary measures is possible, unfortunate incidents can still be challenging to cope with, especially financially. Health insurance can help you and your loved ones detect these lifestyle diseases earlier by taking advantage of its low- to no-cost preventive services. Also, it can help you manage potential healthcare costs, leaving you with one less thing to worry about.
Final Thoughts
The ongoing medical inflation will make the already costly medical expenses much more expensive soon. By investing in relatively affordable health coverage every year, you can avoid bearing the burden of healthcare expenses and opt for quality treatment without worrying about its costs.
