How much money are you paying for your health insurance premiums? The answer is going to vary, depending on which state you happen to live in. Information from the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals what each state is charging for health insurance.
Health insurance is expensive. This is true no matter where you happen to live in the United States. This is the reason why so many people are going without any form of health insurance right now. It is the reason why the Affordable Care Act came into existence, and why so many laws are being made that regulate health insurance costs. It is the reason why so many people are looking for jobs that come with health insurance benefits.
No matter what you are paying for your premiums, you probably think that the cost is too high. Few people would argue with you about that perception.
There are many different factors that determine what your health insurance premium will cost. The older you are, the more you are likely to be charged. People who smoke, or use tobacco products, will end up with a higher premium than people who are tobacco free. If you add your spouse, or your children, to your policy, this will also make your premiums rise. People who add a vision plan, or a dental plan, or maternity coverage to their basic health insurance policy are going to see their premiums rise as well.
Kaiser Family Foundation, according to its website is “a non-profit, private operating foundation”. It focuses on major health care issues that the United States is facing. They are a non-partisan source of facts, information, and analysis that can be used by policymakers, the media, the health care community, and/or the public.
They have put together a map that shows how much people pay for their health insurance premiums in each state. The data they used was from 2010. Overall, the average amount that people paid for their health insurance premiums, across all fifty states, was $215 per month.
If you look at the cost on a state by state basis, things vary quite a bit. People who lived in Alabama paid about $136 per month, while people in Vermont and Massachusetts were paying around $400 per month.
One difficultly with this study is due to the fact that the insurance market in America is fragmented. You cannot compare “apples to apples” in this situation. Some states (like Vermont and Massachusetts), have already implemented changes to their state’s health care system that requires private health insurance companies to cover people who have pre-existing conditions. In general, this causes premium rates to rise.
Other states allow private insurers to exclude people who have pre-existing conditions, and deny them health insurance coverage. This creates a much healthier population that has health insurance coverage. Since this group doesn’t need expensive health care tests and treatments, it causes the cost of health insurance to be lower in those states.
There is a handy map that you can view if you want to find out how much people pay for health insurance in your state. The map was created by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Image by Sue Clark on Flickr