(1888PressRelease)
July 13, 2007 - Professionals in the health benefits industry can’t help but to notice the impact that consumer driven health care has had on the market. There has always been a demand for supplemental medical and dental benefits, but never before has there been such a wide spread disposition for traditional policy based insurance programs.
For a long time, companies have tried to make headway into the supplemental health sector, but they had little success in breaking the mold that major insurance companies have put them in to. The fact is, supplemental health plans can be as efficient and in some cases more efficient than an insurance policy. Where the average health insurance policy with one of the major carriers can cost up to $1000 a month or more even for individuals, it’s no wonder people choose to risk going without.
People can afford something, but when they end up spending more on premiums than they even have in health care expense, then the demand is clearly going to diminish. People choose health insurance many times, because they are available at work and many people receive fair, if not good, benefits at work. The problem is that these benefits become a sort of obligatory effect, where people don’t want to leave their jobs or risk starting their own business because they may have medical bills. This is of course an impediment to the marketplace.
Ameriplan has managed to start a new revolution in consumer driven health care, where members can enroll into the Ameriplan health and dental program and receive an immediate savings at hundreds of thousands of health care providers nationwide, including the likes of major pharmacies and vision care centers such as Rite Aid, Target Pharmacy, Walgreen, Eckerd, Wal Mart Pharmacy and Vision, Sears, JC Penny’s, Lenscrafters, Texas Optical and many others. The benefits that Ameriplan offers are quite flexible when compared to plans offered by more common insurance based health companies like Cigna, Delta, Kaiser, Blue Cross, Aetna, Healthnet or any other major brand. This is not to say that insurance is a bad option, although it is clearly not right for everyone.
The flag ship product that Ameriplan has always marketed would be the dental plan for only $11.95 a month an individual would save up to 80% on all dental services and up to 60% on vision, prescription and chiropractic. For only $19.95, it covers an entire household. More recently, Ameriplan has added their popular health benefits for medical care. The savings of up to 50% can be used with about 400,000+ medical providers. This gives customers a wide range of choices in most every area including rural areas and makes it easy for members to change doctors.
People will always seek the path of least resistance and if consumer health care becomes the newest and most efficient way to secure affordable health care, this means big trouble for the health insurance lobby in Washington. You can only imagine the billions of dollars that go into political pockets in order to keep insurance positioned well in the market for years to come. Movies are probably the most transparent portrayal of the industry considering the high level of secrecy that the government keeps. Michael Moore makes a strong case against major name American insurance carriers in his documentary “Sicko”. Sickos’ debut was surprisingly successful according to many reviews. This strikes a chord for many Americans. People who have paid for insurance for years only to be dropped by their insurance company for ridiculous reasons.
We may wonder what’s really new here. Haven’t we always battled with insurance companies when we submit claims? Well yes and no. Insurance was always meant to cover unexpected expenses. So how can we really expect insurance to take care of say $5000 dollars worth of prescriptions we know we’re going to be taking each year for the rest of our lives? There’s a point when that prescription becomes an “expected” expense.
Wouldn’t it then be reasonable to use a consumer driven benefit to save money on the prescriptions, while maintaining a low cost high deductible catastrophic care plan? This way you keep your insurance premiums quite low and you can actually use the money you save to pay for your regular health care expenses, tax free. This way, there is not so much waste and people get the care they need.
Micah Carter http://www.mybenefitsplus.com/11112159
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