Health Insurance Is A Math Problem Not A Benefits Issue

Most Americans that pay for their own health insurance typically want a low deductible but they don't want to pay the higher premiums.  Many people and business owners feel they are losing out on coverage when they raise the deductible.  It all becomes clear when they realize its just a math problem.

Most Americans are scared by higher exposure and they look at the big dollar amount as something they have to pay out all of time.  The truth is most people use very little of their health insurance.  In fact, most families typically do not even break $1000 a year with out-of-pocket exposure.

Insurance is always a necessary evil. This is with auto and homeowners insurance as well as health insurance.  Even though we may never actually use it, it gives us a piece of mine.  Most families will pay the extra premiums, when necessary, to make sure the family has health insurance.  No one wants to over pay in their premiums.  By anticipating medical claims from the past experience, we are forced to make an educated guess on what is the most reasonable for the family. What brings us to that educated guess is applying some basic math skills you use every day.

Many families are afraid to go from $1,000 deductible up to a $2,500. Rightly so.  However, by raising the deductible, the average family will save roughly $1,500 per year.  That's the same difference in deductibles ($2,500 - $1,000 = $1,500).  If only one thing occurred for that year they would break even based on the cost savings. Most families can get by for 12 months, or more, before anything occurs.  This is one reason why health insurance premiums go up as time goes on based on the anticipated future risk. So if nothing occurs you just saved your family $1,500 for the year. I'm sure you could think of better things to spend $1,500 on for the family.  Again, it is just a math problem, not a benefits problem.

Now there are those people that would rather reinvest the extra money and have additional coverage in areas they may not of had before. In today's tight economy people would rather conserve their dollars.  How do we do that with insurance?

Most families have a concern of having injuries, not necessarily car accidents, but injuries themselves such as sports, if someone falls or your grandmother chases you with her broom stick. By adding an accidental supplemental insurance to reimburse you at claim time will offset your exposure of the higher deductible.  By reinvesting part of the savings back into an insurance product to help virtually eliminate any type of exposure at claim time for an accident only helps the family get ahead.

Paying a portion of the savings back into a program that could virtually eliminate someone's out of pocket expenses is better than having a lower deductible.  One reason is you will be paying higher premiums and still have to pay out-of-pocket at claim time.  Two, there is still a little extra savings that one can put back into savings or another investment to make your money work harder.  All of this is done by doing a little math to make sure you money is going to all the right places.

Butch Zemar
www.EliteBenefits.net

Whoa! Tax-Free Retirement For Everyone

Do you have the retirement plan that gives you a small tax break, now, in the current tax year, and pay a bigger tax later when you finally retire? In addition to the bigger tax, you are forced to start paying the tax at 70 1/2. It is worth repeating, you pay a higher tax later and you are forced to start paying that tax at 70 1/2. No one explained that before? Is there a possible solution? This is an important topic because many working adults are planning to retire, eventually. Most of them had no idea how it will play out when they retire. They feel by contributing at the place of employment they will be AOK at retirement. Think again. Let's think about it. Why would the government give you a tax break this year to help you save? Answer: to tax you later when taxes are higher. Have you ever sat down and done the math on what the short term savings will mean in retirement? Many will lose all their tax deductions by the time they retire. The kids will be grown up and, hopefully, out of the house by then. Maybe your only job for raising kids is spoiling the grandkids and then send them home with their parents. If you play your cards right, your house will be paid for and you will have no tax deduction for that. By losing some of these deductions it increases the amount you will have to pay when you retire. Many people are doing well enough to retire early. With traditional retirement planning and savings, you cannot withdraw from your retirement account until you are 59 1/2. You may have to be locked into your job until the government says you can take the money without any penalties. Many working American's may not realize this is occurring to them. It can be 30 years later when an employee may start realizing this and feel knots forming in their stomach because for their entire career they had no idea that this was going on and if there was another way around it. American's live by immediate gratification. If we want something, and cannot afford it, we put it on a credit card and worry about it later. The new Ford's have the latest technology in their next year's model, you'll finance it just so you can have it. Even some families don't talk about life insurance until it's too late and have to pull out of savings to handle everything. Since retirement is so many years in down the road, many put it to the side and claim they will deal with it later. This could mean bad consequence, such as finding out you will pay more taxes in retirement that you would have thought. To make it even worse, there is a way around it, even if you have to pay a little more taxes throughout the years of employment verses paying a higher tax at retirement. Once we start thinking outside of the box and find there is a problem ( with a solution) and you need to change it, fast! The unfortunate part is, many financial planners are either not aware of any Tax-free retirement plans or resist the change due to what they are used to. They may even throw out slandering comments towards tax-free retirement. If a financial advisor or planner starts doing this, ask them to provide proof or evidence to support their statement. I have yet to have one provide me evidence it's bad news. This tax-free retirement uses the chassis of an Indexed Universal Life insurance contract. Allocating similar funds to a traditional retirement account, you fund a Indexed Universal Life insurance and you would receive the upside gain of the market, but not the downside loss. Which means, you do not have to recover when the market goes south. This will allow the cash in the policy to increase at a much faster pace. If designed right with an expert, you will prevent yourself from making a taxable event with life insurance by putting the right pieces together to have the right amount of death benefit to match the funds that are being contributed. If you decide to retire early, you can without any worries or burden of a penalty for early withdraw. Once you start withdrawing the money, it is tax free, partly because of after tax dollars. This complies with tax code Section 7702 (a). This will allow you to enjoy the fruits of your labors during your working years to enjoy the money you put to work for you, so you do not have to work harder. All of this allows you to enjoy an income stream for the rest of your life. With the right planning in place, you can achieve your financial goals and pay less in taxes. The planning process starts with working with the right expert on the subject. Every situation will be different and end results may not be the same compared to others in the plan. Plans are subject to approval based on underwriting guidelines of the particular company. By talking to an expert, you will have a plan that will be best suit for your wants, needs and budget. Butch Zemar www.EliteBenefits.net

Planning For a Serious Illness

Chances are quite high that you will survive a serious need support. All of which will cost money. You can either ignore it your whole life and get stuck with as much as $500K in bills or plan for and leverage premium dollars to help protect your family from a devastating financial loss. The choice is yours!

Health Insurance: Business Owners May Need Help

Health insurance agents are exiting the market due to industry changes and commission cuts. Make sure your current agent is a major player. If not find someone who will support you and your business.

Honey, Our Life Insurance is Dead!

Review your life insurance. It could be running out of gas and you do not even know it. Life policies are under performing today, is yours?

"The Secrets to Growing Wealthy Without Losing Your Money in the Wall Street Roller Coaster" Register here:

* Email
First Name
Last Name
	* = Required Field

Email Marketing You Can Trust

Supreme Court Argues ObamaCare: Will It Still Stand?

This is a historic week with the arguments about Healthcare Reform, also known as ObamaCare, held by the Supreme Court.  It is not every day that the Supreme Court takes on arguments on cases such as this.  In fact, it's been years since they last overturned something congress has done.  Twenty-Six states sued the Health and Human Services because they believe the law signed two years ago has a constitutional linchpin, the mandate. 

The mandate does not resonate with businesses and families throughout the nation.  Not speaking for everyone, but many feel that not having health insurance will only affect them, not anyone else.  Why should an act of congress change a personal choice?  This leaves them very uncomfortable.

The other side of the coin is, they need the mandate to offset premiums. Many of the people have been waiting for this day of no underwriting and every one with health conditions will not be discriminated.  This will cause more payouts in claims due to the risk the insurance company is taking on.  Premiums historically have gone up, drastically, when this occurs. Just look at premiums in New Jersey and Massachusetts after such law has turned.  Even with Massachusetts having the mandate, premiums still shot through the roof.  

Maybe on the national level, with younger and healthier joining the ranks to offset premiums and not filing as many claims could be a good thing.  Some studies have reflected that the premiums will go up, it is just a matter of time.  At that point it, we will know if it really worked.  It could be 18-36 months after the mandate takes affect.  By then it could be too late.

What happens if we all went back to paying cash for everything like the good old days?  There was a time that doctors made house calls and it was affordable.  It was not like the doctor was under cutting the prices because they were able to put their kids through school.  Now we have to go to their office and sit in the waiting room and breath in everyone's coughs, sniffles and other diseases as we wait for this doctor for almost an hour without any consideration to your time.  Cash is king, they say.  Some of this would change if they knew the customer is really their patient and not the insurance company and prices would become more competitive.  This will help bring cost of healthcare down.  More and more American's will have more 'skin' in the game and become more responsible to make wiser decisions.  

Until then, we sit and wait for the Supreme Court to make a decision while some will point the finger and blame someone else or a politician for the decisions they make. 

Butch Zemar

www.EliteBenefits.net

Did You Win The Mega Million? If Not You Can Still Do AOK!

Many states throughout the country sold millions of Lotto Tickets for the Mega Millions.  Your odds were 1 in 176 million, but people still threw money out to a tune of $1.5 Billion.  Although your chances are low, Americans still went out and spent money on something with such low odds.

Americans face a huge tragedy in their future.  There are better odds in winning a different Lotto, the health Lotto.  Women have a 1 in 2 chance of suffering from a serious or chronic condition.  Men do not have a leg to stand on because they have a 1 in 3 chance of suffering a serious or chronic condition.  However, despite the odds of actually winning, most do not play the game, financially.

If it is described like the Lotto, the Lotto community is the cancer causing agent, if you will.  Americans then invest into the opportunity by buying a Lotto ticket to make it financially.  Then at the time of diagnosis, if the winning lotto numbers are yours, that is when you are able to hit the jackpot, a cash benefit.

Now, if you knew you could win the lotto, it is certain that you would make the investment, right?  One day, your chances of winning the health lottery ticket is high.  It is worth repeating, 1 in 2 for females and 1 in 3 for males.  That is the day you receive a phone call from your doctor about test results.  It could also be that day you woke up just not feeling yourself and you decided to head to the doctors office, urgent care or even the emergency room to find out you are having a stroke or heart attack.  At that time, hopefully you made the investment in advance to win financially when you hit the health lotto. 

Just like the real lotto, you cannot buy a ticket after the fact and win.  On the contrary, unlike the real lotto, you cannot win millions.  Maybe enough to pay off your mortgage and travel the world, or just enough to pay all your bills while out of work to focus on the most important things, your health and your family.

 All of this can be done with the right plan of action.  Typically, it can be done with the right financial planner or the right life insurance agent with a specialized term, whole life, universal life or indexed universal life. They are hybrids and have been around for years.  Many financial planners and life insurance agents may not know they are available or have access to them. With the right planning, you can win your health lotto when you survive the serious or chronic condition or your family wins even if you do die. It's a win, win!  Unlike the Mega Millions Lotto, over 100 million tickets didn't have the winning lotto number, even after planning for it.  When you plan the health lotto, you and your family come out a winner.  

 Butch Zemar

www.EliteBenefits.net

Medical Overbilling Is Like Burning Money

A recent article from the LA Times, "Lawmakers probe Prime Healthcare Services' billing practices", talked about the company overbilling patients.  Billing is one of the industry's biggest problems.  Many American's are overpaying on their hospital bills and do not even know it.  They could be receiving two or three times as much as they need for the services rendered.

Overbilling is an intentional and unintentional act by the provider, hospital or billing coordinator (which can be outsourced).  Most people in America have at least halfway decent health insurance provided by their employer.  In many cases, the employer sponsors plan pays most of the bills and the patient is only left with a reasonable portion.  For the most part people will forget about it until the 2nd, 3rd or final notice comes.  One reason for this is most of us are procrastinators.  Another reason could be is that they want to know what they need to pay, so they wait until the final bills are issued.

There is a problem with this process. One or two bills could be easy to track.  Once the medical bills start piling up, it can be harder to figure out how all the pieces are fitting together.  Once someone is overwhelmed with the process, it can be hard to trace it back and match all of the bills up.

It is common for insurance companies to send out what is called Explanation of Benefits, or known as EOBs.  EOBs are statements provided by the insurance company so the patient can track what is being billed to the carrier to apply towards the policy's benefits.  This document will reference items, which can differ from company to company.  The most common items are:

   * Provider
   * Amount billed
   * Eligible charges
   * Network discounts (if any)
   * Applicable co-pays
   * How much applied to deductible and/or co-insurance
   * Check information if benefits were paid for by the carrier

This is a list of only the common items. The policy holder's carrier may personalize it with additional information that may not be included with the above information.  The patient should now cross reference the information with the bills received by the providers and/or hospital.  There could be possible surprises here.  Here are a couple of questions you should ask yourself when cross referencing these bills:

   * How many doctors did you see during what time frame? 
   * Did you even consult with the provider that is billing you?
   * Where they In or out of network?
   * Did you receive all the supplies being billed on the invoice?
   * Where you even at the location given on the invoice?
   * Did you even have a Private room?
   * Did your insurance company even receive this bill?

The list of questions can go on.  Hopefully, the list will trigger additional questions while you are auditing the bills. A little due diligence can go a long way.  This can amount to savings that can add up to thousands of dollars either for you or the current insurance carrier.  It's obvious that it will be a positive impact for you, the policy holder, if you are the one saving hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.  How about the impact on the industry if even one thousand patients saved the insurance carriers thousands of dollars?  What would it do if a couple hundred thousand patients did the same thing that amounted to millions of dollars from over billing?

Butch Zemar
Elite Benefits of America
www.EliteBenefits.net

Health Insurers Face Extinction... Aetna CEO Says

At a recent conference in Las Vegas, Aetna CEO, Mark Betolini, made a statement "The system doesn't work, it's broke today" along side with "Reform is not going to stop.  It won't go away".  Could be a sign that Healthcare Reform had made an impact that is here to stay.

This is almost like the impact the dinosaurs had when an asteroid collided into the earth.  Maybe the health insurance companies are working in the land before there was time.  Now, it could be just a matter of time before only a few will actually survive.  In the state of Iowa, as of 4Qtr of 2011, 13 carriers had left the Iowa market, leaving only 22 carriers to spare.  This equates to about one carrier every month exiting the market.  Indiana had nearly 10 percent of their  health carriers exit the market.  It is possible that other states could have more carriers that already exited the health insurance market.  Moving one step closer to extinction.

One of the promises made by President Obama to the American people before the health overhaul law was passed in 2010 was "If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what."  The law is not even in full effect until 2014 and many carriers are dropping out of the market.  This is causing millions of people to lose their current coverage.  My instinct says there is more to come.

There are already hundreds of mandates an insurance company must obey in order to sell insurance.  Some carriers are leaving because they can't take on any more mandates.  Other carriers have had a financial impact somehow.  In either case,  health insurers may be laying to rest, in a box with a flower in their hand six feet under.

As we move into unchartered waters, stay close to a reputable health insurance agent.  Your close contact could save you problems as we move ahead into healthcare reform.

Butch Zemar
Elite Benefits of America
www.EliteBenefits.net