Florida’s Low cost Health Care Insurance Polcies

Recently, a bill was signed in Florida that would help establish the creation of a affordable medical insurance plan for Florida residents.

Regrettably, very few individuals stopped to take a close look at what was actually being proposed. Permit me to enlighten you on some of the more important aspects of the proposed plan.

First of all, it isn’t a mandated medical insurance plan. In other words, an insurance carrier would need to decideif they even want to create a plan to sell. That’s NOT A PLAN THAT THE STATE OF FLORIDA IS PROVIDING. Please understand that Florida is in the midst of an extreme budget crunch and isn’t spending a single dime on this plan. Governor Crist has made that very clear. The cooperation of the medical insurance industry will be necessary to make this work. As of now, there are no plans available.

Second, this isn’t a major medical plan. If you’ve a medical crisis and this is your only medical insurance, you are in many trouble. It’s a minimal plan with several physician visits, a physical, perhaps some generic prescription coverage (the drugs you already get in Wal-Mart for $4) and several other benefits. Surely, none of you ever thought that you would get a complete major medical plan for $150 a month.

Next, the plan is for someone who has had no medical insurance for six months. This means that in their infinite wisdom, Florida’s representatives decided that if you lose your job and can’t afford your COBRA insurance, they want you to be without any medical insurance at all for at least six months. We have a real brain trust in Tallahassee don’t we.

Now, you are really going to love this. The plans are going to sell for about $150 (projected price but who knows) and give you the most minimal of benefits. But that is the price for an individual. A family will be much more. As a matter of fact, if you’ve a healthy family, a traditional major medical plan with real benefits might be less expensive.

Consider this example, at FLQUOTE a Florida Health Care Insurance Web site a 40 year old male in Pasco County can get an excellent PPO plan for about $130 a month. We are talking about a complete multi-million dollar, major medical plan. Not a minimal plan.

<h3>Who will this plan help?</h3>

I’m still trying to figure that out. That’s supposed to help those of you who can’t get medical insurance. But, it will not pay for your costly brand name prescriptions; it will not cover extensive hospitalization or costly testing procedures. For those of you who think that dental coverage is part of medical insurance – it’s not. It won’t cover any dental or vision expenses .

If you are poor, you are much better off on Medicaid. If you are medically qualified, you will get far more coverage for your money with a traditional medical insurance plan.

Have politicians created a created a, half-way measure to pander to the voters? Is it “better than nothing”? If you are paying $1,800 a year for several office visits, you need to wonder if it’s even worth it.

If you are holding your breath for government sponsored medical insurance, chances are you will turn blue and collapse first.

You do have alternatives. There are decent affordable plans available to Florida residents. There are also guaranteed issue plans with no medical questions that are similar to the plans being proposed. You are able to find guaranteed issue medical insurance plans internet-based.

Clearly, it will be interesting to see if this new proposal yields any positive change or does it become an exercise in futility.