I finally decided that I needed to look into it. After all, I might be missing something that I could be using with my group health insurance plan. (A FSA also works with a private health insurance plan offered by an employer.)

I found that the government sets up FSAs. It’s designed to help people set aside money for their deductibles, co-payments, co-insurance, and other expenses that relate to your health care (even dental), but are not covered by your health insurance coverage.

The government allows you to set up an account much like your checking account. You then make deposits directly from your paycheck, before taxes, into this account. It’s just like the the other pre-tax withholdings on your paycheck, i.e. FICA, Medicare, etc. Doing so gives you the advantage of not paying taxes on your health care and depending on how much you set aside, that advantage can be significant.

The tricky part is you have to set up how much you are going put in this account before the coverage period (usually a year) starts. It is important to remember that the money must be spent only on the area the government has allowed, which is your health care. Therefore, you will need to look at your health needs and figure how much you think you might be spending for the year on prescriptions, doctor, and hospital visits.

An FSA may be a good way to go if low cost health insurance is your goal then. The only problem I found with this program—and it’s a big one— is the government got greedy. The program requires that if you do not use all of the money that you’ve put away for the year (or coverage period) in this account, the government keeps the unused part.

I just love how the government can ruin a good program.

My company that I work for, and many other companies, offers employees an HMO health insurance plan. The premiums that the company and I pay are what I feel, competitive with other type of plans.

HMOs also offer individual and family health insurance to private uninsured citizens at very reasonable prices. So, if you need to buy your own private health insurance policy, be sure to fill the free, no obligation quote here. It’s an easy form and lets the insurance professionals do all the work in finding the best policy for you.

Concerning my own particular HMO plan, I really like it because the care providers have usually seen your medical health problems before and know how to treat them. A doctor in this system will see many patients in a day. With this type of exposure, the doctors are familiar with most illnesses and consequently, problems are more easily diagnosed.

Another advantage to an HMO, is that they work closely with many other doctors, so they can, and do, consult on the more difficult problems. I also like being able to get flu shot for a small deductible.

The problem I have with our HMO is if they feel (they being the telephone operators that takes my calls) that I do not have a serious health problem, it can take months to get to see a doctor. A recent example of this happened when I tried to schedule a physical. I couldn’t get an appointment for 6 months. Another problem I have is I am tied to their system, and it is difficult to get a second option without paying for the whole cost.

As with all businesses, the part that keeps people coming back are the people working there that personally interacts with you. The medical business is no different. The doctor you have will either make you feel like an HMO is a good health insurance plan or not.

For my family and me, a HMO healthcare plan works. I know that my HMO doctor cares and actively works with us to keep us all healthy.

One day my boss said he wanted to send me out with one of his best salesman. It seemed like a good idea, so I went with him to his next appointment. The couple was in their mid-thirties; with a nice home, and said they needed health insurance.

We sat down and at the kitchen table and he began to give his sales pitch. About halfway through the husband said that he had heard enough, and that they were not interested.

I thought it was over, but the other agent stood up and started yelling at the top of his voice. He said that he had come to give them a health insurance quote and that they would listen until he was done. He sat down and began talking in a normal voice. The couple looked at each other and never said a word.

I can’t tell you how embarrassed I was. I thought we had lost the sale for sure. When he was done, he gave them a family health insurance quote and they bought the policy.

However, I knew that I would never be able sell anything as he did. I never went to another home to sell insurance. I was done!

The internet has since turned the world around. Now you can easily find free health insurance quotes from qualified professionals without the old-fashioned salesman and his archaic—and sometimes, outlandish—selling techniques in your living room.

I would like to tell you a personal story. My son was out playing on his bike and he hit a rock. He just tipped over and fell on his arm. When my wife and I looked at his arm, we could see that it was broken.

We took him to the hospital where we spent about 3 hours. The break was more than just a hairline fracture and it took a specialist to set and cast it. We told them that we didn’t have any family health insurance and asked to give us any price break they could. They agreed to give us a discount.

It wasn’t long before we got the bill and it was for $5,000.00. That was a lot of money, but we knew that it was going to be expensive. We even thought that it was reasonable until we looked at all the charges. I do not remember most of them, but one I will never forget was the cost of two aspirin. They were $110.00 each. It took us 2 years to pay that bill.

Now when I look at the monthly cost of my family health insurance I measure it by the number of aspirin. My monthly payments seem like cheap insurance.

America is a nation that takes care of the world. We fight disease and malnutrition in other countries. So, I wondered how we ranked with the rest of the world when it comes to providing for our own citizens.

According to the 2007/2008 Human Development Report, the United States ranked 36th in commitment to health, which includes resources, access, and services. How do our pregnant women fare? The same report reveals that the U.S. shares ranking 39th with three other countries for maternal mortality. That means that 38 other countries have less maternal deaths than us. I previously wrote that when there is a lack of medical care for the mother and child, death rates increase. The Human Development Report supports this conclusion.

We are the United States of America. Why are we in 36th and 39th place in this report? Why are we not leading in less maternal deaths? Why are we not united in the endeavor of health care for all?

According to Womenshealth.gov, “babies of mothers who do not get prenatal care are three times more likely to have a low birth weight and five times more likely to die than those born to mothers who do get care.” Two of my friends can’t afford individual health insurance pay out of pocket expense to see a doctor, but both of them go less than they should. I now worry about their health and that of their unborn child.

I live in Colorado and I want to know why my state government isn’t involved? Are women and children in other states suffering these same problems? Not one Colorado candidate addressed this issue during the recent state election campaign.

One of the problems might stem from lack of adequate statistics. I haven’t been able to locate any, not for the nation nor for the state. Or maybe they are as ignorant as I was, as most candidates were male or older females. I’m not sure, but I find that I’m disturbed by the lack of care to our women and children. I wonder when this country will worry about their own people as much as they do other countries.

It seems I’m not alone in deductible increases. One family reviewed their insurance plan and their deductible increased from $1000 to $10,000 in less than five years. If that isn’t frightening enough, recently researchers found that almost 3 million children are either not covered or under covered by their parent’s insurance company. All of this translates into a national financial crisis.

A Kaiser poll found that 28% of Americans had problems paying their medical bills. But not to worry, doctors have figured out a way to guarantee that they get paid. They are now offering credit cards at their offices. If you can’t pay the bill they will simply hand you an application for a new card, which is approved right in the office. Your tab will immediately be charged to it.

When options are few, this type of credit might seem like a life saver. However, when the first bill arrives, people realize that they sold their soul to the financial devil because their medical procedure now has a 19% interest charge on it. Medical professionals certainly deserve payment for their services, but not with a 19% interest charge.

They do not have the right to glut themselves on others’ misfortunes and hard times. Another family, who opted for the credit card solution, ended up declaring bankruptcy due to the minimum monthly payments and the loss of a job. Unfortunately, in this economy, most families with medical problems are a crisis away from this situation.

Halloween is over. The election is over. Health care reform is on its way. Let’s hope that it will destroy such monsters that prey on the helpless, regardless if they’re uninsured, the under-insured, or the insured.

Chief Executive Officers of leading American companies with nearly 10 million employees convened to improve America’s dire health insurance problems. Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs, unleashed their new health care policy today aimed at providing affordable health insurance options for every American citizen and establishing a reliable and secure public safety net.

Chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications, Ivan Seidenberg, stated, “The problem with the health care market in this country is that it doesn’t really function as a market—leaving major consumer needs unmet, costs unchecked by competition, and basic practices untouched by the productivity revolution that has transformed every other sector of the economy.

The policy offers changes that would make the health care system more transparent and understandable to American consumers. The changes would make the system more efficient, while having more marketplace options for employers, as well as individuals, to acquire coverage.

The policy is built upon the following concepts:

Go to http://www.businessroundtable.org/pdf/HealthPlan-Prepublication.pdf for the complete plan.

Business Roundtable President John Castellani said, “Technology, competition and innovation can be the most powerful weapons in the fight to provide every American reliable, affordable health insurance.”

Americans are rightly worried about the economy…and it doesn’t seem to be getting better fast. One of the chief domestic worries Americans is the high cost of health insurance. Health insurance costs are rising considerably faster than wages and income and presently over 47,000,000 million Americans are going without it. An alarming statistic from the U.S. Census Bureau is that the largest group of Americans to be declining employer-sponsored insurance has a yearly income around $75,000.

To put this in perspective the American 2008 poverty level for a family of four is $22,200. Add or subtract $3,600 for each person to find the level for your own personal life. Since $35,600 for a family of eight is considered poverty level and if Americans homes with a yearly income of $75,000 are finding it difficult to obtain or retain health insurance, America is indeed in dire straits.

The health insurance issue quickly became a political focus in the 2008 campaign. Republicans says that tax incentives and eradicating outdated tax breaks are the answer to making health insurance more affordable. Democrats are in favor of socialized (publicly-funded) medicine that will have an approximate $110 billion price tax while quickly assuring Americans that it won’t be funded by raising taxes on middle class families. Presently, the U.S. has a safety-net system which provides hospital, community health centers, and medical providers to give emergency care to individuals regardless of their ability to pay. Much of the safety-nets’ revenues are financed through federal, state, and local funds and are influenced by those policies. However, many of the safety net hospitals and clinics are floundering because policy-makers are reallocating such funds to other areas.

America is the only, wealthy industrialized nation that doesn’t provide universal health care for their citizens. However, it seems advisable to review the successes, or lack of it, of other industrialized countries, such as England, Canada, or Australia, with their socialized medicine system. We definitely need to make sure it is the right answer to our health insurance problem before we jump on the band-wagon of socialized medicine with universal coverage as its goal.

The rise of America’s uninsured population is growing. It’s an epidemic that affects many areas. Obviously, those uninsured have worse overall health outcomes than those insured. Several factors figure in. There is often the lack of continuous care. Uninsured patients also are less likely to with follow-up or recommended treatment. Statistics show that the uninsured often ignore or overlook medical help even when obviously needed, such as an injury or a new chronic problem.

However, America has come up with a solution. The U.S. safety net system is the United States providing emergency care to individuals in spite of their ability to pay. The safety net system is a composite of providers, hospitals, and CHCs (community health centers) which, by federal mandate, provide health care to those in need who cannot pay for medical care. It’s a wonderful concept and relief to those who use it. Many of the uninsured frequently depend on emergency rooms. CHCs, or safety net hospitals as a substitute for health insurance.

The safety net system, however, depends on a variety of sources of revenues These include local, state, and federal funds, which are influenced by state and federal policies. Often funds are reallocated away from safety net as state and federal public policymakers try to contain health care costs and expand coverage. Recent proposals have reduced Medicaid funding, and created workforce shortages. State initiatives to increase such coverage have even unintentionally threatened the safety net’s ability to provide care.

Even when greater funding has been provided, many CHCs have difficulty recruiting physicians to work in their centers. Some CHC administrations have noted that large portions of the federally allocated funds are used to compensate or recruit medical professionals.

This is only a small tip of the iceberg showing the myriad of problems for the safety net system. Over 47 million Americans are uninsured and that number is expected to increase as more people are unable to afford private insurance. It will continue to increase as federal policymakers limit eligibility and funding for public insurance. There is also the factor that the actual demand for safety net care is increasing as there are more in need of dental care, specialty services, prescription drugs, and mental health care.

States, communities, the government, as well as individual citizens have a huge responsibility to insure that the safety net can continue with their mission. We have to ensure that the safety net has the ability to cope with financial and workforce constraints, so they can continue to provide care to the poorest and most vulnerable of America’s citizens.