Medical Costs With vs. Without Health Insurance
There is absolutely no question that health insurance is an extremely vital aspect of your overall healthcare plan. And there are a slew of reasons why you should opt for a plan.
Not Having Medical Insurance is Indeed a Bad Idea
Just to give you a basic idea about not having a medical insurance plan, uninsured individuals will never receive optimal health care. Not to mention, no matter what the health emergency is, you treatment will not be prioritized compared to the person who has insurance.
Moreover, if you look at it from a long-term perspective, not having insurance is going to cost you a lot of money on prescriptions medications that insurance policies like Medicaid and Medicare cover (that depends on the type of medication and illness in question).
No insurance is more or less likely to lead you into debt and a pretty heavy fiscal burden, and this burden will linger on till the next generation. And that isn’t something anybody would wish for.
Furthermore, the advantages of widening coverage supercede the total costs of added medical services. Sure, hospitals do provide safety-net care, but they aren’t an optimal alternative for proper, defined and financially enabling health insurance policies.
The Dangers of Health Insurance Tax Penalty
Well, the real cost of forgoing your health insurance doesn’t really have anything in common with the tax penalty. Rather, it is entirely about the risks of getting gravely ill and having to spend a couple of days in the hospital. You can’t imagine the amount of money you are going to accrue without insurance – something that you may never be able to pay off.
One of the primary principles of the Obamacare formerly known as the Affordable Care Act is the mandate for health insurance. That requires that every US citizen must have medical insurance coverage. However, the health coverage can be applied for or come from multiple sources – be it your employer, HealthCare.gov, your wife or husband’s health plan, your parent’s health plan, Medicaid and Medicare, etc.
But if you don’t have any health insurance or coverage at all or not by the source accredited by the Obamacare mandate, you will never be able to qualify for tax exemption. And that means you are going to have to pay a penalty on your yearly tax return – particularly for the year you went without a health insurance plan. For example, if you did not have any health insurance in 2017, you are going to have to pay a penalty for it in 2018, when you file for your taxes.
There are basically two ways the tax penalty will be calculated. But when you file for your taxes you will have you’ll have to do both these calculations and pay whatever is higher!
- The percentage of your total income (household) – which is 2.5% in both 2017 and 2018 – with the highest fee amounting to the total annual premium for the countrywide average cost of a Bronze coverage that HealthCare.gov sells.
- Paying $347.50 for each child and $695 for every adult (2017 and 2018) – the maximum fee here will cross $2,000.
However, if you haven’t had any medical insurance for a couple of months, the tax penalty will not be applied on your annual returns. This is referred to as a Short Gap Exemption, which is primarily designed to help people who have no medical insurance during job switching and whatnot.
The Real Cost of Not Applying for Not Buying Medical Insurance
The actual cost of not having any health insurance is not something the IRS will bear – in actuality it is you who is going suffer in the long term. How? Well, without any insurance, even if you fall gravely ill once or twice a year, you are going end up paying thousands of dollars in healthcare expenses. And if you can’t come up the money, you are going further down in the debt spiral.
A lot of people say that getting high-deductible insurance plans, which if you think about, are designed for millennials – you end up saying thank you for going into debt. That is true to a certain degree – however, higher-deductible coverage cap the total amount of debt accrued – which comes in significantly handy when you have to a pay a hefty medical bill.
This is to inform you that health insurance expenses can quickly become a hefty pile of debt. The medical care industry in the US is costly with health insurance, just imagine how expensive it will be without any coverage.
However, if you’re someone who goes to the doctors’ twice or thrice a year due to any reason – a routine checkup or anything else like testosterone complications or even erectile dysfunction – your insurance will help your medical expenses. The cost of Viagra without insurance is staggering – especially if you’re prescribed a long-term dosage.
According to a statistical analysis posted by Amino – it was identified that more than 77 million people visited the doctor’s office in 2016! However, when it comes to young and close to middle-aged men, you will still not be visiting the doctor more than women. Another research by Amino determined that back in 2016, more women visited the OBs and GYNs – especially women aged twenty and above, compared men that did not even see a doctor that year.
To Sum it All Up
You can’t plan on getting ill – that is something that happens without warning. Moreover, there are people who need to go to the doctor for a check-up at one point or the other. Opting for a health insurance will help keep you out of debt and offer a load of other advantages such as:
- Your insurance policy will pay for critical healthcare treatment for a severe illness or injuries sustained as a result of an accident
- You are guarded against sudden increase in medical costs
- Before meeting your deductible – you’d already pay less for covered in-network
- Vaccines, medical screening, routine checkups and all preventative care services will be free for you till you reach your deductible threshold.
