The Cost of Getting Sick in Today’s Health Care Environment - Part 1 Can you afford to get sick? It’s a question we often ask at The American Assurance Underwriters Group (AAUG) to potential clients thinking about purchasing international health insurance. What we’ve found is that most don’t want to even think about it, but yet more and more people have to ask themselves that very question. And unfortunately, their answers haven’t all been positive. That’s because over the course of the last decade, we’ve seen health care costs quickly rise. In fact, the average cost of a hospital stay alone in a country like the United States has almost doubled. Yes, doubled. In the year 2000, the average cost of a hospital stay was roughly $17,000*. By 2010, that price jumped to just over $33,000. And it’s not getting better. The U.S is the only major industrialized nation without a national paid sick-leave policy.
Life without Health Insurance For those who don’t possess basic health insurance, they’re now facing the grim fact that they no longer can afford these rising health care prices. Visits to the doctor, dentist, or other health care provider are being weighed against paying the electric bill or having enough money to put food on the table. Sicknesses go untreated in exchange for heat. Checkups go by the wayside in exchange for lunch money. Too often, we find that more and more people are deciding to forgo getting the necessary treatment or medications to cure or prevent their ailments. They do so because they know that if they miss work, they lose money from their paychecks. It becomes a viscous cycle.
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The Importance of Health Insurance By the time the uninsured do decide to seek help, their ailments tend to be quite severe. Which also means that their health care services are extremely expensive. Without health insurance, they have no ability to pay the exorbitant amounts of money charged to them, putting a strain on their households and also on the industry as a whole. That’s why it’s vital to have as many people as possible covered by health insurance. Insurance plans work optimally when you maximize the number of people participating in a specific plan. It helps insurance companies, like AAUG, achieve the economies of scale needed to keep prices low across the board.
How to Avoid Financial Ruin With no clear end in sight to the rise of health care costs, the best way to ensure that you don’t lose everything when you get sick is to purchase international health insurance, like the kind offered by AAUG. Staying within your country of residence to receive health care is ideal. You benefit from familiar surroundings and family support while eliminating travel costs, residency concerns, and a possible language barrier. These savings can stretch your benefits further, allowing you to get more care without the worry of going over your policy limits.
In Part 2 of The Cost of Getting Sick, we’ll explore these potential savings and the price variations in health care between countries like the United States and the rest of the world. *According to FaceTheFactsUSA.org For more information, visit for more information – www.AAUG.com
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