Getting and keeping affordable health insurance in your state is up to you. With health insurance market constant changing with new laws, new research and increasing cost of healthcare. It is up to us to do our research to understand health insurance and the ways on how we can control health insurance costs. Health insurance companies to stay competitive understand the need for affordable health insurance plans. Insurance companies are constantly changing their health plans to make them more affordable. The only real way to make health insurance plans more affordable is to exclude certain benefits. It is a risk that insurance companies are taking. Since most of the time when shopping for the health insurance plan most people do not understand what is exactly covered and what is not covered.

We have to agree that health insurance companies are not going to give away free coverage. With that in mind we have to agree that insurance companies are also not going to have a plan that cost less cover everything exactly the same as the plan that cost more. The cost of health insurance is almost the same across the board not matter which insurance company you go with. It is true that insurance companies that run more efficiently can offer better rates. What makes that largest difference in the cost of the actual plan is what and how it covers medical bills in case of emergency. The great thing is insurance companies are closely regulated by state insurance commissioner. State laws do vary and so do health insurance health plans in every state. For example in some states insurance companies can exclude certain pre existing conditions to offer you a lower rate. If you have some medical issue and it is being covered by workman's compensation insurance then you would not need to have double coverage. In other states like California you either get approved or you will get a higher rate or you will get declined. Insurance companies in the state of California cannot exclude coverage on pre-existing conditions once you are approved.

With all of that in mind let's look at all the options we have to make our health insurance plans more affordable. First is our deductible, which will give us largest control over health insurance premium we pay to Health Insurance Company. There are three types of plans with deductibles. One is a health plan where you have to meet the deductible to get any benefits, the second one is where everything is covered with small co-pay and deductible applies only for hospital stays and third the most popular and the most dangerous one in no deductible. No deductible plans in most cases are the creative work of the insurance companies. In most cases plans that have no deductible you will be responsible for what's called daily fee and co-insurance. In most cases you could be more out of pocket with no deductible plans then a plan with a deductible.

Second we have more and more insurance companies offer health insurance plans with option of have brand name drug coverage or just generic prescription drug coverage. What does that mean to you? Well the simple way to explain this is that brand name drugs are the drugs that you see on TV commercials. Prescription drugs are regulated by FDA and by FDA rules after the brand name drug has been on the market for over five years over drug companies can copy it. That means that when Drug Company comes out with a new drug they can charge for it as much as they want and no one can copy their formula for that drug for over five years. The reason FDA has that type of rules is because they figure that it takes a lot of money to research new drug. By FDA regulations brand name drugs and generic drugs must have exactly same active ingredient. Basically they are exactly same drug just one cost a lot more. Talk to your doctor before you make any changes. Here is where we are getting with this is if you get a health insurance plans that covers generic drugs only you can save your self a lot of money on your health insurance premiums. With some health plans you can also customize your prescription drug deductible.

Third is health insurance plans that give you option of covering your doctor visits or not covering them. This option could save you a lot of money. What that means is some health insurance plans will allow you to pay for your own doctor visits versus having insurance company pay portion and you pay co-pay. You have to ask your self how many time do you really go to a doctor every year? Most regular doctor visit will cost you anywhere from $55 to $75. Therefore you if you go once or twice a year to a doctor and you can just pay out of pocket and save $50 a month on your health insurance, would you do it?

Well here you have it with these three options you can get affordable health insurance. There are some other options you can also take a look at like Health Saving Account qualified health insurance plans, which is a different topic. It all just makes sense, why pay for something you do not need and not going to use. With some simple decisions you can get the coverage you want at the premium you can afford.

Dennis Alexander - leading consultant for employer group and individual/family health insurance. Marketing consultant for major health insurance resource websites and brokerage firms online. Some of the websites consultant and/or administrator http://www.HealthCoverageQuotes.com and http://www.AssurantHealthCoverage.com