The 63 day window is just one of the 6 requirements that must be met by law in order to be eligible for a HIPAA plan. The 63 day rule actually makes a lot of sense because the purpose of the HIPAA laws is essentially to protect people who through no fault of their own have lost their health insurance even when they have done the responsible thing and tried to keep continuous coverage. In other words, people that go without health insurance coverage for 63 days are acting irresponsibly and therefore the HIPAA laws will not (and should not) step into to protect them.

You are right in that HIPAA premiums are very expensive as they are right on par with group health insurance premiums like COBRA (the whole premium not just the employee paid premium). This is because HIPAA plans and group plans must by law accept everyone on the plan that applies regardless of health conditions and HIPAA goes a step further and even requires that all pre-existing conditions be covered right away. Contrast this to a regular individual health plan and HIPAA is often 2-3 times more expensive because with an individual health plan one must pass through medical underwriting to get approved for the plan.

Moral of the story is to buy adequate health insurance before one needs it and always keep coverage in force and then if something happens outside of your control that causes you to not be able to keep your health insurance then the HIPAA laws will step in as a plan of last resort (essentially already existing true universal healthcare but most people just want something free and easy without bothering to do their own research or actually pay high premiums for high quality health care).

Good luck getting HIPAA, btw… this quote is from a HIPAA discussion:

“Though this is right, there is no easy way to get this coverage. Insurance carriers for one do not want you on a policy through HIPAA because that means you most likely have some kind of pre-existing conditions. If you didn’t, you could have just gone through medical underwriting on any carrier. Insurance, by definition, is the avoidance of a unknown catastrophic loss. A carrier knows there going to suffer a loss if you have a condition, and they don’t want that if they can avoid it.
A Carrier will deploy many different techniques to try and get you to not take a HIPAA Plan. Unless you know exactly the right forms to fill out and how to fill those forms out correctly, you will still get denied, though the law is on your side.
“The law has nothing to do with right or wrong, fair or unfair. The law is about which side can afford to make the other party do that it wishes.” Carriers have loopholes, and only by experience can you MAKE a carrier take you, and even then its not easy, but it is possible.
P.S. There is only a 63 day window that you can get a HIPAA Guaranteed Plan, and even one hour over and you can be disqualified if the carrier chooses.

Step carefully through the minefield…. and whatever you do, DONT have an medical condition which impairs your cognative function, or need medication or chemo, or some other treatment that would result in possibly not completing the extensive paperwork perfectly and on time….

BTW, the monthly cost for coverage? At my age, with spousal coverage, and one child: $1,800 to 2,200 per month…..

Its the rare person who has been ill & out of work for 18mo + , and has paid COBRA for that time at about $1,000 per month, that can afford costs such as this for coverage and medical care, too.

I wonder if I could put my HIPAA insurance premium on my Credit Card….?

As far as your concerns with an employer based health insurance system I am with you on that front. I personally have an individual health insurance plan with United Healthcare that I bought on my own and I am very glad that I have it. I would hate to have to only take the plan an employer was offering. One option is for someone to just purchase their own individual health plan on their own and not take their employer provided plan if their employer provided plan is not a comprehensive plan (especially since individual plans are so much cheaper than group plans although if the employer is paying all of the cost of the employer plan then the downside is that you miss out on that perk of course).

I would still submit that if someone really knows what they are doing then they can guarantee or at least come close to guaranteeing that their exposure is limited to manageable costs (only in this area of health care costs and not in all areas of life of course). The unfortunate thing is that many people simply are not educated and don’t care enough to educate themselves AHEAD of time on the various safeguards that they have like HIPAA, COBRA, etc. that by the time they need it it is too late because they did not prepare ahead of time.

The other issue is nursing home care costs if someone becomes disabled…. stroke, car accident, etc. There is much that can be done, but I personally look at medical situations very differently. HIPAA coverate only lasts for 18 mo. or so, I believe, and costs in excess of $1,000 per month in many cases for family — unaffordable for many unemployed families.

Yes, its about prudently limiting one’s exposure. It is fairly simple to greatly reduce the risks, but guaranteeing one’s exposure is limited to manageable costs? Not a chance! Life can be too unpredictable…

…and the list of causes in extreme situations is limitless. But these ARE the exceptions, & the reason why laws include bankruptcy protections for what should be the extreme, rather than the irresponsible situations.

As for employers dropping someone from their coverage or other things happening outside of one’s control the Federal HIPAA laws are in place in all 50 states to protect people who lose health insurance coverage through no fault of their own by forcing insurance companies to accept people onto their special HIPAA plans regardless of pre-existing conditions and they have to cover everything. Sadly, most people (and even agents) are totally clueless about the HIPAA laws and the protections they offer.

Very true though that careful planning can only go so far because anything can happen. As far as health insurance goes though there are definitely things that one can do to guaranteed that ones exposure is limited to a very manageable out of pocket cost no matter what happens from a medical standpoint though.

Its not unusual, I understand, for some employers to terminate an employee who is diagnosed with a serious medical condition, or whose child is. This is part of the utter folly of having one’s medical insurance coverage contingent on who one’s employer happens to be.

So get cancer, or have a preemie baby,heart disease, hit by a dump-truck, and despite the best laid plans, comprehensive insurance, etc., it can all vanish overnite. This is compounded by the the sharply higher rate of divorce in the case of parents of children with serious medical conditions, and finances can quickly spiral out of control. Its really not a case of not planning for routine expenses & deductables, but those far more serious situations.

Responsible, careful planning is a great hedge against such situations, but not bullet-proof, particularly in this economy. These are the types of catastrophes originally indended to be resolved (appropriately) through bankruptcy protection.

For some time I purchased additional disability coverage for myself, as the coverage I had in place through my employer was deemed somewhat inadequate, based on my family’s specific situation. Wow, did my questioning the level of coverage & weekly payment amounts ever raise suspicions at first, until I was able to explain the basis for my questions. Gosh, I would have thought EVERYONE would want to ensure they had adequate coverage! LOL, there….

Not so sure there is as much ‘choice’ in the case of necessary medical treatment. But that is a far different case, in most cases!

I would agree in some part with you that yes there are certainly systemic problems in these uncertain times that could make someone more prone to overextend themselves but in to be brutally honest and without trying to sound too insensitive no matter what the circumstances are we all still have to make the decision to spend more than we earn and go into debt. No one forces us to swipe the credit card or take out the home equity loan.

Wouldn’t you agree that regardless of unfortunate or fortunate circumstances it is still ultimately the responsibility of the individual to either get out of debt or stay out of debt?