How are These Plans Different from Other Health Insurance Plans?

The individual health insurance market is different from standard health insurance in many ways. And on top of that, health insurance for individuals within that market also depends on a variety of factors.

While it's true that individual health insurance is usually more expensive than group health insurance or employer provided coverage, this isn't always the case for everyone. Individual health insurance is usually more expensive because there isn't a larger pool of people to spread out the cost of insuring someone who gets sick. In any group of people only some of them will become ill or get injured and need medical care. With group insurance the premiums paid by the healthy often compensate for the costs accrued by the unhealthy, creating lower payments for everyone.

Individual health insurance doesn't have that group insurance benefit. So, individuals must absorb all of those costs themselves. This is why individual coverage can cost more.

But if you're a young person, a healthy person, or if you have no dependents, then you can often get more affordable coverage than other people shopping on the individual market. This is because younger people, healthier people, and people without dependents don't usually cost much in terms of medical care, so insurance companies can afford to offer plans that cost less.

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