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that sound too good to be true, they almost certainly are, Bell said. Indeed, you may be looking at a simple discount plan, not an insurance plan at all, he said.
“Look at the fine print to see what you are getting,” he advised. “If a 35 year old is normally going to be charged $280 to $300 as a healthy person, and he’s being offered a policy for $90 to $100, you really have got to look closely.
“You’ve got to look at the deductibles,” Bel added. “Is it in network, is it out of network, is it an HMO? There are a lot of differences in policies, and you’ve got to find out what they are.”
As far as he is concerned and from a consumer’s vantage, Bell prefers working with a real, live agent that he can get to know — in other words, he’s not especially keen on Internet sales.
“And you want to be sure to do the background check on the company,” he said. “You want to be sure that they are rated by Standard & Poor’s or Moody’s,” he said.
This is a problem that’s not going anywhere anytime soon, Bell said. Many economists expect unemployment to reach a national average above 10 percent.
“The federal government is obviously trying to get a universal health plan in place, but I just don’t think that that’s in the works,” Bell said. “I think [a universal health plan] is going to be very expensive, and I don’t think it’s going to be very beneficial.”
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