Don't Pick Premiums Over Benefits when Shopping for California Health Insurance

What does it mean to shop for premiums over benefits when shopping for your new California health insurance plan? Well, like so much these days, a California health insurance plan can come with sticker shock for the consumer. Remember though: If you decide to focus entirely on the monthly premium to the exclusion of all else - shopping for premiums rather than benefits - you're running the risk of spending (significantly) more money at some future point in time for your health care needs.

A health plan has lots of components and the person shopping for the health plan that is uniquely right for them needs to understand how these components can work together to save the consumer money, or work against them and end up costing significantly more money should illness or injury strike. Let's look at some ways where a lower premium can be deceptively too easy to pass up if you're shopping for an affordable California health insurance plan and feel pressured by cost constraints and how that can wind up hurting the consumer.

You choose the lower premium of an insurance company with a smaller/weaker provider network in your community. You and your family end up using a lot more out-of-network services than you thought. Avoiding out-of-network health care services is right up near or at the top when it comes to saving money on your health care costs during the course of a plan year.

You selected a plan that had a higher annual deductible or annual out-of-pocket limit than you can now afford to meet. If you choose an HSA-compatible high deductible health plan and understand right from the start that this is either a strategy where you fund your HSA to pay for qualified medical expenses that are under your annual deductible or you leave your HSA unfunded, knowing and understanding that the health plan you have is there for catastrophic health care needs in the face of major illness or injury, then you've made a decision that is right for you. If - on the other hand - you historically do use health care services each year, buying an HSA-compatible high deductible health plan and not funding the accompanying HSA may not be the right strategy for you. Paying for your health care services with a high interest credit card is not a winning long term financial strategy.

You use a brand name prescription drug but purchase a health plan that offers a generic-only drug plan benefit. Anyone who buys brand name drugs without insurance can tell you that the high cost of health insurance pales in comparison to the high cost of paying for brand name prescription drugs. While plans that feature both generic and brand name prescription drugs cost more, not having adequate brand name drug coverage will likely obliterate any savings you achieved by going with a health plan with the lower premium.

Next time you shop for California health insurance; shop for both premiums and benefits: You'll be glad you did.