It is unfortunate that the loss of your job almost always coincides with the loss of your health insurance. At a time when you are already dealing with stress and frustration, life adds the loss of health insurance to the situation. What are your options when your employer no longer subsidizes your health insurance plan? Where do you and your family turn when you have lost your income and now find that you have also lost your health insurance coverage?

There are a few options available but there are no absolute solutions. Cost plays a large part in the choices available at a time when you have just lost your income. If your spouse has a job and is eligible for coverage at his/her employer, this might be the ideal option for your family. Some employers do not offer family coverage, but this option should definitely be investigated. Recent unemployment is a valid reason for starting a policy outside of the normal enrollment period, so this is on your side.

Any employer who has at least 20 employees must offer COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) as an alternative insurance plan. This insurance is offered for a term of up to 18 months and will cover you and your family members. The problem is that it is very expensive. Employers are permitted to charge up to 102% of the current premium. You may not have realized that you were only contributing a very small portion of your health insurance premium while employed. This will all change now.

Investigate insurance coverage through trade groups, alumni associations, AARP for people over 50. There are many groups who would welcome you and your family as participants. Compare costs and choose what is most cost effective for you.

Workers who are 65 or over would be eligible for Medicare coverage. In the majority of situations they are already receiving hospital coverage. When losing their employee coverage, they are eligible for a special enrollment period to sign up for Part B and Part D coverage without incurring any financial penalty.

The question seems to be, where else can I cut back? It is becoming increasingly more difficult to answer. Many Americans surveyed feel that these are the worse economic times they have ever seen. Unfortunately, they also believe that the current situation will last for at least the next year or two. This is depressing and people are looking for ways to cut expenses.

At least 70% of those surveyed said they are even cutting back on such essentials as food and auto transportation. Fortunately, most of them have Medicare to take care of their health needs. Rising gas prices was the killer for 51 percent of those questioned. Those who work, 67 percent, were the ones who cited gas expense as a number one priority. Those who were retired considered rising food prices as the biggest problem faced today. We all have to eat, so this is a major concern to everyone.

On the plus side, the current economic situation has caused people to re-evaluate their spending and realign for the long haul. The majority of people blamed Washington for the current economic ills. Lifting all regulations and allowing everyone free reign brought us to this place in time. Many people became very rich by exploiting the free reign they were given. The rest of us are now paying the price.

People are very aware of their current expenses and carefully watching every dollar spent. Most are taking positive financial action during this year of turmoil. Many are reading more financial information and/or seeking help from financial advisers. Some are actively investigating areas in which they can reduce expenditures. It is difficult to know where to invest your retirement funds these days, as everything seems to be falling apart. Hopefully, we will get past this crisis and our world will return to what we have come to think of as normal.

Yes, the politicians are constantly saying that they are going to address the existing health crisis in this country and will make sure that all citizens have health insurance coverage. Listen to them on the campaign trail but, remember, once they are in office, they discover that their plan doesn’t work. This has happened repeatedly and the end result is that this crisis is becoming worse each year and does not appear to be any closer to a solution.

The individual stories are so sad that it embarrasses me to think our government has allowed things to go this far. I just read about a man in Los Angeles who was a diabetic. He knew that he was about to be laid off from his job and would lose his health insurance plans. He actually made the decision to have his foot amputated before losing his health insurance benefits. Another true life story tells of a woman without health insurance who was suffering from abdominal plans. It took her a year to locate a physician willing to see an uninsured patient. This poor woman died of ovarian cancer at a young age.

These two individuals, along with others, will be the center of a television documentary entitled “Critical Condition” which will be shown on PBS on September 30th. I hope everyone will make an effort to watch this show so that we will all be more aware of the crisis our citizen’s are facing daily. It is imperative that we remember these people when we are asked to vote. We must demand health insurance for everyone. Tune into this show and see an actual “Reality” show.

All health insurance policies are very expensive. How much you can afford often defines the type of policy you will apply for to cover your family’s health insurance needs. Budgets always must be a consideration. We would all like to have health insurance policies that cover every possible contingency but it is highly unlikely that most of us can afford this type of policy. Therefore, we must make choices weighing both our needs and our finances.

The first thing that needs to be done is a complete comparison of health insurance policies you can afford and the coverage they will provide. It is difficult to analyze medical policies as they tend to use medical terminology with which we are not familiar. If you have someone who can assist with this, it would be a good idea to call on them. If not, you will have to buckle down and try your best. You also have the option of contacting an insurance broker who will help you find the right policy for you and your family and who will be able to weigh the differences between policies in language you can understand. This broker will be happy to make recommendations regarding family health insurance and can be a very good source of knowledge for you.

When trying to contain costs, the two types of policies to be considered are the limited benefit policies and the high deductible policies. A comparison of these two can be done by your broker who will provide you with an analysis and a recommendation. He is an experienced insurance broker who will probably be able to suggest what will be best for you and your family. The final decision, however, is yours.

Limited-benefit policies are exactly what the name suggests. Each area of the policy has specific limitations and, if your needs exceed these, you will be responsible to pay the difference. This can be extremely expensive in the event of serious illness. It is very possible that you will not have the funds necessary to support the cost of this illness.

High deductible policies, however, operate almost in reverse of limited-benefit policies. With a high deductible policy, none of your day to day miscellaneous expenses are covered. You pay all of these out of pocket, although your policy may arrange for discounts on the charges. Only when you reach your out-of-pocket yearly deductible, sometimes as high as $6,000 or more, do you become eligible for full coverage. The advantage to this type of policy is that your exposure is limited to your deductible. With the limited-benefit policy, it pays many minor expenses but often deserts you when the large bills arrive.

The best way to describe the difference between these two policies is to state that the limited-benefit policy is probably more beneficial for ordinary medical expenses if you do not have a serious illness. The high deductible policy can cost you right up to the deductible amount, but after that your expenses will generally be covered in full.

Only you can decide which type of policy is best for you and your family. Accept professional guidance and choose what is best for you, but remember that you have to live with your decision.

In today’s economy, we have more and more people without jobs, resulting in many more uninsured persons. If you no longer have an employer, you probably no longer have a health insurance policy, as the majority of us carry our family health insurance policy through our employer. COBRA is a very expensive alternative, especially for someone who is unemployed. Even if you are still employed, employers often change the offered coverage as they are constantly seeking to reduce their costs. People often see health insurance as something they do have or they do not have. There is a middle road which is becoming more popular today as it seeks to reduce costs while still supplying coverage. The problem is that the coverage is often inadequate to meet the needs of the insured and can leave people in a state of shock, especially if a serious illness occurs in their family.

The new plans that I am referring to are called limited-benefit health plans and they are exactly what the name implies. They supply only limited benefits to their insureds and each plan can vary as to the particular coverage available.

Confusion regarding these plans is causing many complaints to be filed with regulatory agencies and advocacy groups, as some people are finding themselves with extremely high medical bills (some even tens of thousands of dollars) which were completely unanticipated and which they cannot afford to pay. They believed they had health insurance and generally were unaware of the limitations of their coverage. For example, some policies covered a hospital stay up to $300 per day. The average cost in 2006 was actually close to $1,612. It is precisely these caps on individual areas of the policy that are causing the problem. Most people are completely unaware of what is and is not covered by their policy.

The lesson here is that if you are considering a limited-benefit health insurance plan because of the lower rates, it is imperative that you know exactly what your coverage limits are so you can plan accordingly. No one wants to be surprised by sudden expenses that they cannot meet. Coverage on these health insurance policies is very limited and it is important that you are aware of these limitations when you accept a policy such as this.