Comments on: The Freedom of Individual Health Insurance

By: Jonathan Pletzke

Jonathan Pletzke — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:26:40 +0000

As part of the second anniversary cavalcade of risk, this best-of article still rings true nearly a year later. This is a tough choice – to take the employer health insurance or keep your own individual. It is in many ways a short term versus long term perspective, and everyone needs to reflect on what their plans and what-if situations.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:17:19 +0000

I am a health insurance broker and I get calls from people all the time saying “I’m leaving my job, but I recently got a pre-existing condition. What should I do?”

By: Colorado Health Insurance Insider » Managed Care Matters Has Your Cavalcade of Risk

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:56:41 +0000

[...] Joe Paduda hosts the pre-holiday edition of the Cav and he’s done a great job explaining each article so you can just breeze through it and read what sounds interesting. My favorite post was from Jonathan Pletzke who has just written a book called “Buying Health Insurance Without Getting Ripped Off“. So he started a blog to market the book I suppose. His submission to the Cavalcade is titled “Why Getting Your Health Insurance at Work Can Be Dangerous” and points out many of the same problems I pointed out in an earlier post here on the Colorado Health Insurance Insider. It’s about one of our clients that was very happy I gave her that same advice when she had the “opportunity” of dropping her individual plan for a plan through her new employer that would have cost her almost nothing: “The Freedom of Individual Health Insurance“ [...]

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:04:51 +0000

Ihabibe, Individual/family plans can be underwritten in Colorado. Group (or guarantee issue) plans cannot (to an extent). But that is what makes them so much more expensive - they have a very high cost structure because they cover a much higher percentage of people with very expensive conditions - so the cost structure is very high. That is the point, get on a much less expensive individual plan now and you'll be able to keep it and not get yourself in the situation of having to pay guarantee issue rates (like a group plan or CoverColorado).

By: Ihabibe

Ihabibe — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:15:23 +0000

I thought it was illegal for health insurance companies in Colorado to not cover pre-existing conditions or not cover people because of pre-existing conditions now? Because of HIPPA.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:41:55 +0000

I’ll look for your email. I hope we can help…

By: Jane Poindexter

Jane Poindexter — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:22:38 +0000

We went through ehealthinsurance, but the guy we were supposed to be working with didn’t mention anything about pre-screens. It was actually pretty frustrating because each time I called he would completely forget who I was and we had to start from scratch. Then I called another time and he was no longer working there so I started working with another guy who didn’t seem to know very much or remember my situation either. We haven’t accepted any of the offers from the health insurance companies that we applied for yet though, so hopefully you can help us find something. I’ll email you.
Thanks!

By: Jay

Jay — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 14:33:55 +0000

Jane,
That is a very common situation. It sounds like you didn’t have a broker who could pre-screen your underwriting situation first so you don’t waste time filling out applications. We see that happen a lot because people think there is a cost to have a broker help you out. There isn’t a cost, so feel free to contact us so we can see if there are any individual health insurance companies in Colorado that will work for you because you’ll want to exhaust those options first. If there aren’t any that will work, we will look into your best guarantee issue options.

By: Jane Poindexter

Jane Poindexter — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:30:55 +0000

My husband is leaving his job and plans on becoming self-employed in June. Our family has health insurance through his employer and me and one of our kids have been turned down by three insurance companies so far for conditions we didn’t have when we got the coverage through his job to begin with. I wish we would have gotten an individual plan back then because things would be so much easier now.