It is often assumed that no matter where you live in the country your particular form of health insurance plan will be the same as everybody else’s. Well, when it comes to California health insurance this is not the case.
Individual states are permitted to pass their own legislation with regard to health insurance if they wish to do so and California state law requires health insurance providers to include certain provisions in their plans.
In particular, California aims to ensure that health insurance plans are available to all California residents. Accordingly, the state requires all health insurance plans to be renewable and prohibits health insurance providers from denying health insurance on the grounds of pre-existing conditions.
These provisions are particularly valuable to California residents because it means that, as long as you have a plan then, regardless of what happens to you, your health insurance company cannot simply cancel your plan and must give you the option to renew it.
One of the biggest problems with health insurance is that when you are young, fit and healthy you don’t see any real need for health insurance. In addition, even if you do feel you need it, you often find it difficult to pay for it after you’ve paid all your other bills, especially if you have a young family and are buying a home.
However, all of this could change in a flash if you are unfortunate enough to have a serious accident or to be diagnosed with a serious illness. Indeed, if you have an accident which leaves you requiring medical care for the rest of your life, or with an chronic illness which is again going to require ongoing care, you could to coin a phrase, ‘be screwed!’
Indeed, in many states, even if you do have a health insurance plan you can find yourself with a problem when it comes time to renew it. However, in California, you will have no such problem because, once insured, your health insurance provider must renew your policy if you wish them to do so.
Now it’s not all good news of course because your insurer can increase your premium, but there are safeguards in place and limits to any increase that can be imposed. Nevertheless, at the end of the day the simple fact that you can get health insurance, even if you have to pay a high price for it, may still be worth its weight in gold if you have a serious medical problem.
