Private Health Insurance: Renewal? It's an annual thing.

This Smart Money article is pretty informative, if you didn't yet know that buying private health insurance is more difficult, more expensive and provides less "coverage" than other plans (http://www.smartmoney.com/consumer/index.cfm?story=20030929
Buying Private Health Insurance By Stacey L. Bradford).

Oh yeah, and those renewals after you feel like you've made your best choice...no problem as long as you actually didn't have to use your insurance to pay for medical care and heaven forbid, actually got sick.

The push for private health insurance has been dubbed "empowerment" by those who benefit from such situations: insurance companies providing less for more, businesses phasing out employer sponsored health plans and the government handing over the responsibility of America's HEALTH, not only America's health insurance, to insurance companies.

The solution does not lie in wringing our hands and bemoaning the state of affairs, nor does it lie in assuming that because we managed to get what we believe is a doable insurance policy for one year that we're out of the woods. You know that eventually you will need health care, right? Or else, why are you buying health insurance at all? The minute you get a diagnosis, start thinking about your possibilities of getting insurance coverage next year. That's what gets me going. Start writing to public officials, start investigating the high risk insurance pool coverages available for people like you, start looking for health clinics after your assets, including those fabulous few thousand dollars in your health savings accounts are emptied. It stinks.

So what are we to do? Stop thinking this is an every man for himself situation. You are among the many who are or will get sick...sorry, that's the way it is. The best thing to do in conjunction with getting the best deal you can is to use your insider status with your insurance company to watchdog their actions.

Look at how the little claims get handled. Gauge the amount of time you spend arguing over the little amounts. Check your bills. And start documenting ANYTHING you think is wrong to the Better Business Bureau, the State insurance department and commissioner, and maybe even discrimination claims filed on a federal level. These can often be filed via email and require nothing more than documenting your experience once and sending it off to multiple addresses.

Don't worry about the time you spend documenting, this is currently our responsibility anyway. For high deductible health plans and health savings accounts, currently consumers are responsible for keeping records that withdrawals from such accounts were for medical purposes (and for those who love empowerment, the insurance company banks holding your funds don't have to do very much administratively at all to collect their money); more and more we are pushed to have personal health records. Personal health records can be used to battle insurance companies. They're being pedaled as an easy way for medical providers to understand your medical status but if you actually look at the provisions they don't reduce any duplicate tests or additional verifications by either the insurance company or the medical services provider. And when your renewal is so expensive that you consider shopping around after a medical diagnosis, you'll have your information ready to submit to health insurers.

Keep track of your denials of coverage as well.

Legislation is the only way to stop the current health insurance approach. Instead of balking at the boogey man government getting involved, learn a little bit about how you can actually influence the decisions being made that will impact your ability to get, pay for, and have useful health insurance.