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Health insurance is like a of insurance in which the insurer pays cost to the insured if individual becomes sick due to any covered causes and anyaccidents. The insurer may be private or government agency.

History and evolution

The concept of health insurance is proprosed in 1964, by the Hugh the Elder Chamberlen from the Peter Chamberlen family. In the late 19th century, early health insurance was actally disability insurance, in the sense that it covered only the cost of emergency care for injuries that could lead to a disability.
A Healthe insurance policy is an annually renewable contract between an insurance company and an individual. With health insurance claims, the individual policy-holder pays a deductible plus copayment.Usually there is a maximum out-of-pocket payment for any single year, and there can be a lifetime maximum.
Health insurance companies also often have a network of providers who agree to accept the reasonable and customary fee and waive the remainder. It will generally cost the patient less to use an in-network provider.

Common complaints about private health insurance

  1. Insurance companies do not announce their health insrance premiums more than a year in advance. This means that, if one becomes ill, he or she may find that their premiums have greatly increased (however, in many states these types of rate increases are prohibited).
  2. If insurance cimpanies try to charge different people different amounts based on their own personal health, people may feel they are unfairly treated.
  3. When a claim is made, particularly for a sizable amount, insureds may feel as though the insurance company is using paperwork and bureaucracy to attempt to avoid payment of the claim or, at a minimum, greatly delay it.
  4. Health insurance is often only widely available at a reasonable cost through an employer-sponsored group plan.
  5. In the United States, there are tax advantages to Employer-provided health insurance, whereaas individuals must pay tax on income used to fund their own health insurance, although there are a minority of pre-tax health plans currently extant.
  6. Experimantal treatments are generally not covered. This practiceis especially criticized by those who have already tried, and not benefited from all "standard" medical treatments for their condition.
  7. As the health care recipient is not directly involved in payment of health care services and products, they are less likely to scrutinize or negotiate the costs of the health care received.
  8. Some health care providers end up with different sets of rates for the same procedure. One for people with insurance and another for those without.
  9. Unlike most publicly funded health insurance, many private insurance plans do not provide coverage of dental health care, or only offer such coverage with additional premiums and very low dollar-amount coverages.
  10. Insurance Companies can influence the type or amount of treatment that the insured receives by setting limits on the number of visits,types of treatment, etc., it will cover.

Factors affecting insurance price


    Because of advances in medicine and medical technology, medical treatment is more expensive, and people in developed countries are living longer.The population of those countries is aging, and a larger group of senior citizens requires more medical care than a young healthier population.

    Some other factors that cause an increase in health insurance prices are health related: insufficient exercise; unhealthy food choices; a shortage of doctors in impoverished or rural areas; excessive alcohol use, smoking, street drugs, obesity, among some parts of the population; and the modern sedentary lifestyle of the middle classes.

    In theory, people could lower health insurance prices by doing the opposite  of the above; that is, by exercising, eating healthy food, avoiding addictive  substances, etc. Healthier lifestyles protect the body from some, although  not all, diseases, and with fewer diseases, the expenses borne by insurance  companies would likely drop. A program for addressing increasing premiums,  dubbed "consumer driven health care," encourages Americans to buy high- deductible, lower-premium insurance plans in exchange for tax benefits.