More than half of all Arkansans with health insurance say that the monthly premiums are hard on their finances, and 17 percent of Arkansans have no health insurance at all.
Almost every day, a new business says it won't offer health insurance anymore or that its employees will have to pay a big chunk of the monthly premiums on their own.
Anyone in Arkansas who isn't covered by a group health plan needs to get cheap health insurance online. But before you blindly start looking at health insurance websites, you might want to take a moment to see what you can do to lower the cost of your health insurance even more.
First of all, if you live in Arkansas and have been denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition or given an outrageous price for health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, you may be eligible for a state-run programme called CHIP, which stands for Comprehensive Health Insurance Pool.
No matter how much money you make, you can join this programme. If you think you were turned down for health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or if you can't find affordable health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, it would be worth your time to check out their website: http://www.chiparkansas.org.
Even if you don't qualify for Arkansas' CHIP programme, you can still do a few things to lower the cost of your health insurance.
First, let's talk about tobacco. If you smoke or use other tobacco products, you are intentionally shortening your life and giving yourself more health problems, so your health insurance will cost more. Stop smoking and stop using any other kind of tobacco.
Being overweight is a big problem, and for many people, it's one of the hardest ones to solve. Your Body Mass Index, or BMI, will affect part of your health insurance premium. This is a fancy way of saying that people who are overweight pay more for health insurance. Even a small amount of weight loss can often get you a lower BMI, which can lower your health insurance costs by hundreds of dollars per year. Even a small amount of weight loss can help.
Don't do dangerous sports or drive a fast, fancy sports car. If you have a job that is considered dangerous, your monthly health insurance premium will also go up.
See if you can raise your copay if you can afford to do so. This is the money you pay every time you go to the doctor or get any kind of medical care. If you raise your copayment from 25% to 50%, you can cut your monthly health insurance premium by a lot. This is a good idea for people who don't see their doctor often.
We saved the most important thing for last. Your deductible. Your monthly health insurance premium will be less if your deductible is higher. This means that you are willing to pay more out of pocket each year for your own medical care before you call your insurance company.
Some people buy health insurance with a very high deductible, like $2,000 or $3,000. These cheap policies don't pay for routine medical care or visits to the doctor's office. Instead, they are meant to protect a person's assets and home in case of a major accident or illness that leaves them with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.
Certainly. Now that you know what you can do to lower your monthly health insurance bill, go online and start comparing policies and prices between the different insurance companies in Arkansas that sell health insurance.
Remember that no website compares all the different health insurance companies in the state, so if you really want to get cheap health insurance online in Arkansas, you will need to spend the extra time and compare on at least 3 different websites.
Good luck, and take care of yourself!
