I have pretty good health insurance now that I switched jobs, but my previous employer’s health insurance benefits were degrading pretty rapidly and because they are such a small company I can see them continuing down that road.  While talking to one of my buddies at the old company he showed me this site where you can go out and get quotes on various health insurance plans on your own.  For those wondering the site is www.ehealthinsurance.com

I was amazed at how reasonable the rates were for his family of 4 and this last weekend I punched my families demographics into their quote calculator and while some of the deductables are a little higher (which isn’t bad if you want to start an HSA (Health Savings Account)), you can get a pretty cheap rate.  In fact I could get insurance for about half of what I was paying at my previous employer where they were subsidizing 72% of our health insurance costs.

Now I know as with any group plan, the healthy people at the company are subsidizing the costs for the sick people.  That’s why you should probably never buy life insurance through your employers plan if you are a healthy individual as you can get the same coverage MUCH cheaper by going out on your own.  Maybe this is the case with health insurance or maybe I’m just a big dummy and don’t understand something.  Obviously these are probably teaser rates and they probably expect you to have 100% perfect health (just like term life insurance quotes), but if you do have relatively good health and never go to the doctor maybe this is something to check out.  It just seems counterintuitive to everything I have heard about people getting their own health insurance and having to pay through the nose.  This is probably one of the biggest reasons I would find it hard to start my own company (I couldn’t afford the heath insurance).

Now if you sign up at these “cheap” rates and you have a bad year health wise I am sure they jack the rates on you or even try to deny renewal.  I’m really not sure.  For those of you out there that have your health insurance how does it work?  Am I overlooking something major here?