About 17% of Floridians can't get any kind of health insurance because they can't afford it. Even if you only have a little money left over each month, there are ways for you to keep your health insurance or get it if you don't already have it.
Start with your children. If you have children under 19 who don't have health insurance, you may be able to get them very cheap state-sponsored health insurance through a programme called KidCare. This is true even if one or more of your children already has a health problem.
Go to http://www.floridakidcare.org/ to see if your kids can get health insurance through KidCare.
If the place where you work doesn't offer group health insurance, check with any other groups you belong to. Car clubs, fraternal organisations, and even churches often have some kind of group health insurance that they can offer to their members at a much lower cost than individual health care.
Another benefit of group health care is that it usually covers pre-existing conditions, which is not always the case with individual health care.
If you run your own home-based business and have been doing so for at least six months, a Florida law may let you get group health insurance even if you don't have any employees or if your only employee is your spouse, even if they only help you out part-time. Talk to your insurance agent to find out if you are eligible.
Ask your insurance agent if you can get a discount on your health insurance if you have more than one policy with them. If you have more than one policy with the same insurance company, you might be able to get a discount on your monthly health care premiums.
Also, if you've been with the same insurance company for at least 5 years, ask if you're eligible for a discount for having a long-term policy. If you ask, most insurance companies will give you one.
Stop smoking or using any other tobacco product. Period. If you smoke, chew, or use any other tobacco product, you will never get the cheapest health care.
How much you pay for health insurance is also affected by how much you weigh. Most people find it harder to lose weight than to quit smoking, but even a small amount of weight loss can move you into a lower weight and cost category and save you hundreds of dollars a year in premium costs.
If you want to get cheap health insurance, you shouldn't do dangerous or extreme sports. You won't get the cheapest health insurance rate if you go out of your way to hurt your health.
Think carefully about how much of a percentage you can pay each time you see your doctor as a co-payment. If you can afford a 50 percent co-payment, your monthly premium will be lower. This is a fantastic idea for people who don't go to the doctor very often.
How much of a deductible can you pay? This is another important question to ask. Your deductible is money that you have to pay for your own health care each year. Think about this carefully and be honest about how much you can really afford to pay. The higher your deductible, or how much you have to pay out of pocket, the lower your monthly health insurance premiums will be.
Now, use what you've learned in this article to make a plan for health insurance that will save you the most money. Once you've done that, go online and find at least three websites that let you compare health insurance policies and prices from different companies side by side.
Look at the same policy on at least three different sites and compare them. Once you've done that, it's easy to get cheap health insurance online in Florida and you can be sure you're getting the best deal you can.
