Can You Get Non-Employer Sponsored Group Health Insurance?
As for a group of individuals banning together to say “we are a group” for the purpose of getting a group health plan, we are not aware of such an occurrence. Insurance companies are permitted by most state and federal regulations to place restrictions on what types of organizations or “groups” qualify to purchase a group health plan. Such regulations are necessary because small group health insurance is “guaranteed issue” in most cases. This means that the insurance company must provide health insurance to any qualified group, regardless of their health history or current health status. If any group of people could ban together and qualify as a “group”, then this would occur quite frequently from groups of people that can’t get health insurance any other way, primarily because they have medical conditions that prevent them from being insurable. 2 CommentsLeave a comment |
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Is there a way that a group of people can enroll in an insurance plan, or is there such an insurance plan, where they are not related and do not work together…a co-op so to speak?
Some insurance companies (in certain states) will allow associations to join together to form a group that qualifies for enrollment under the same health plan. These associations must be small businesses within the same trade, such as franchise owners working as independent operators for the same corporation. Realtors are another common association that often ban together to form an association group health plan.
Is there some organization or association that I can join or become a member of to get cheap group health insurance premiums? I will be ending my employer sponsored Coventry insurance soon if I can manage to find one that is better and hopefully cheaper. I know that there are some organizations that offer almost the same as group health insurance, but they always seem to have some restrictions like having been a member for a long time or volunteering to do a lot of work. I just want to sign up for some organization and pay a member fee, so I can get cheaper rates. Do you know of any organizations that offer this nationwide? Do you have to be some kind of minority to get these offers?
Comment by Brock — June 24, 2009 @ 10:54 am
I practiced medicine for 31 years in the 2nd poorest of 67 Florida counties. It was quite common to see someone die because of no access to healthcare in a timely manner. Half my patients had no insurance. And, no they were not “mostly illegal immigrants”.The rare non-English speaking patient(who may or may not have been illegal) always brought cash. If an imaging study was needed, such as an MRI, it would be a terrible uphill battle and arguing and fighting with a Wall Street owned hospital…etc. I never heard of a Medicare patient complain about access. What other rich country on earth has such a crude, heartless, despicable and morally reprehensible state of affairs? Is the whole world wrong and only Americans are right? How naive would it be to believe such nonsense? Our healthcare delivery system is the laughing stock of the world. One hears this in between-the-lines comments from visiting foreign colleagues at national medical conventions. As a prominent Princeton economist said; “Advanced countries don’t do this to their citizens”. Something has to change where the insurance companies will stop cherry-picking by refusing to give insurance to anyone except the very healthy. There is nothing wrong with making a profit. It doesn’t have to be an obscene profit.From a moral and ethical standpoint, insurance executives, big pharma executives and finance executives have a lot in common.Thank you. M.M.Michaels,MD, Roswell Georgia.
Comment by Mike Michaels,MD — July 10, 2009 @ 11:27 am