Florida Health Insurance Rate Hike

Florida Health insurance premiums have touched new heights! Every Floridian has the common knowledge that most annual health insurance contracts will endure a rate increase at the end of the year. This trend is not new and should be expected. Every time this issue pops up it seems as though the blame game starts. Floridians blame Health insurance companies; Health insurance companies blame Hospitals, Doctors and other medical care providers, Medical care providers blame inflation and politicians, well, we really don’t know what they do to help the issue… No one seems to be interested in finding the real cause of the health insurance premium rate increase. Most individuals, self employed, and small business owners have taken Florida Health Insurance Rate Hikes as the inevitable evil.

Hard Facts

What are various reports telling us? Why do Health insurance premium have annual rate increases?

Rate of inflation and heath insurance premium rate increase.

America’s health expenditure in the year 2004 has increased dramatically, it has increased more than three time the inflation rate. In this year the inflation rate was around 2.5% while the national health expenses were around 7.9%. The employer health insurance or group health insurance premium had increased approximately 7.8% in the year 2006, which is almost double the rate of inflation. In short, last year in 2006, the annual premiums of group health plan sponsored by an employer was around $4,250 for a single premium plan, while the average family premium was around $ 11,250 per year. This indicates that in the year 2006 the employer sponsored health insurance premium increased 7.7 percent. Taking the biggest hit were small businesses that had 0-24 employees. There health insurance premiums increased by nearly 10.4%

Employees are also not spared, in the year 2006 the employee also had to pay around $ 3,000 more in their contribution to employer’s sponsored health insurance plan in comparison to the previous year, 2005. Rate hikes have been in existence since the “Florida Health Insurance” plan started. In covering an entire family of four, a person will experience an increase in premium rate at every annual renewal. If they would have kept the record of their health insurance premium payments they will find that they are now paying around $ 1,100 more than they paid in the year 2000 for the same coverage and with the same company. The same item was found by the Health Research Educational Trust and the Kaiser Family Foundation in their survey report of the year 2000. They found out that the premiums of health insurance that is sponsored by the employer increases by around 4 times than the employee’s salary. This report also stated that since 2000 the contribution of employees in group health insurance sponsored by employer was increased by more than 143 percent.

One business man predicts that if nothing is done and the Health insurance premiums keep increasing that in the year 2008, the amount of health premium contribution to employer will surpass their profit. Professionals within and outside the field of Florida health insurance, think that the reason for increase in Florida health insurance premium rates are due to many factors, such as high administration expenditure, inflation, poor or bad management, increase in the cost of medical care, waste etc.

Florida health insurance rate hikes affect whom?

Rising rates of Florida health insurance generally affects most of the Floridians who live in our beautiful state. The highest affected individudals are the minimum wage and low wage workers. Recent drops in the renewal of health insurance are mostly from this low income group. They just can’t afford the high premiums of Florida health insurance. They are in the situation where they can not afford the medical care and they can not afford the medical insurance premiums that are assosiated with adequate coverage. Almost half of all Americans are of the opinion that they are more worried about the high health insurance rate and high cost of health care, over any other bill they have on a monthly basis. A survey also finds that around 42% of Americans can not afford the high cost of health care services. There is one very interesting study conducted by Harvard University researchers. They found out that 68% of people who filed bankruptcy covered themselves and their family by health insurance. Average out-of-pocket deductibles for people filed bankruptcy were around $ 12,000 per year. They also found some co-relation between medical expenditure and bankruptcy. A national survey also reports that main reason for people not to take health insurance is the high premium rate of health insurance.

How to reduce Florida’s high health insurance cost? Nobody knows for sure. There are different opinions and experts are not agreeing with each other. Health professionals believe that if we can raise the number of healthy people by improving the lifestyle and regular exercise, good diets etc. than naturally they will need less medical care services which decreases the demands of health care and hence the cost.( This year in Florida the smoking rate has increased by 21.7 percent) One Floridian sarcastically suggested that there are ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ in health care that are needed to reversed. That the state of Florida is to ‘high’ in cost of medical care compare to other States and ‘low’ in the quality of health care.

Florida Health insurance rate hike has attracted many frauds. These frauds float many bogus insurance companies and offer cheap health insurance rate which attract many people to them. These companies usually through assosiations that are based in other states.

Meanwhile reputable Florida health insurance companies provide different types of health insurance like employer sponsored group health insurance, small business health insurance, individual health insurance etc. to vast number of employees and their families. Still there are many people in Florida that lack any health coverage. Today the employer also has found it challenging to decide how to offer employer sponsored group health insurance to their employees, so that both of them arrive at some point of agreement.

For Floridians it is very important to shop around for a quality health insurance program that doesn’t break the bank.

You need to find an agent or web portal like Florida Health Insurance Web, www.FloridaHealthInsuranceWeb.com that offers a variety of products. There you will most likely be able to get quotes, compare plans, and apply online.

Florida Health Insurance Consultants can help you!



By: Morgan Q. Moran

About the Author:

Jewelry Girl

Medical Malpractice can occur at any stage in your treatment plan causing both minimal and maximal side effects. The degree to which a medical professional harmed you by their ill practices differs significantly from one case to the next. In cases where only a small in fracture of medical malpractice occurs usually the medical professional will not report it because the patient rarely noticed anything. When small occurrences of medical malpractice occur they should be treated as if they were life threatening errors because in the future they quite possible evolve into life threatening ones. Severe occurrences of medical malpractice occur when a medical professional fails to provide their patient with the duty of care that is warranted from medical treatment. In these types of cases it is imperative for the medical professional to come clean if they noticed and error so that the patient can seek immediate treatment. However, there are some doctors that commit these acts on purpose to gain lucrative incentives from insurance companies. These instances of medical malpractice are the kind that is tainting the reputation of doctors as well as pharmaceutical companies across the nation.

Medical malpractice can become a lengthy, costly and emotionally draining process that requires the most knowledgeable and experienced lawyers in the area. One of the key factors to becoming successful in you medical malpractice lawsuit is hiring the best lawyer. Some law firms have dedicated teams in dealing with personal injury and product liability cases. Lawyers that have experience in dealing with the medical industry, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical giants are optimal. For they have the experience in dealing with intimidating companies that try to bury law firms with massive amounts of paperwork. This is a tactic that large companies will use so that the lawyer and the victim run out of resources and are forced to settle and a discounted rate. Upon hiring your medical malpractice lawyer there are some key things you can do to help your case gain speed. From the time that you first seek medical treatment to the time you think you have fallen victim to medical malpractice, make sure that you keep all of your medical documents. This is going to be especially important if your lawyer hires an expert witness who needs this documentation to determine what your doctor did or did not do. This is going to provide the court with unbiased proof that your doctor committed medical malpractice.

If you or a loved one has been caused harm by a medical professional, I urge you to seek medical help from a different establishment. Then if your doctor finds that your previous doctor gave you a misdiagnosis, wrong prescription, bad treatment plan, or any other type of failure of their duty contact a medical malpractice immediately. For there are specific time limitations put on these types of cases so it pays to be prompt. In our current economy no one wants the unwanted expenses of medical bills that were caused by negligence, therefore protect yourself and file a medical malpractice suit against those who have wronged you.



By: Paul Justice

About the Author:

Joshua