Sage

Blue Cross is a good insurance plan- at least in my expierence.

Basically insurance works like this-

You're insured against something bad happening to you that would require you to go to a doctor. Depending on what plan you have, you might be covered against any and all reasons you want to go to a doctor, or you might have a plan that requires you to only go to a doctor when you're really sick (usually, if this is the case, you have to call your provider first and tell them what's going on, and then they tell you if it's ok for you to go to a doctor or not).

Once you get to the doctor, and get your thing checked out, you go up to the receptionist and she runs your insurance and then that's where the "deductible" and "co-pay" come into plan.

- Firstly, there's different types for different insurances, but what they're basically trying to tell you is how much money you have to pay out of pocket(meaning, out of your salary) when you go to the doctor

- A deductible is an amount of money- can be anywhere from $50 to $5000- that you have to pay out of pocket per year (and that year is set by your insurance company, not by the calendar) before your health benifits kick in. Not all plans have a deductible. It is generally good for this number to be low, although the lower the deductible the higher the monthly payment. So, let's say you have a $250 deductible on your insurance. That means that you have to pay $250 of medical visits out of pocket before your health insurance will start paying for things.

-After you meet your deductible is when the term co-pay starts to make sense. A co-pay is just like it sounds- it's how much you pay when your insurance pays the rest. For example, on my insurance, I have a 20% co-pay on all medical visits- this means that when I go to the doctor, I pay 20% of the cost of the visit up front, and the other 80% is filed with the insurance and they pay it. My chiropractor visits cost $57 every time I go- so I pay $11.40 (which is 20% of the total cost of the visit) and my insurance pays the rest.

Generally, yes- low numbers for all of those things is good. However, low numbers up front can mean high monthly payments- and that is when you have to ask yourself "do I really need to be paying this much for insurance?" How many times a year do you go to the doctor? If you generally don't go to the doctor, and would want insurance in case something major happened (like appendicitis), perhaps a higher deductable would be good for you- it would mean low monthly payments but you're still insured.

If you throw out more specific questions, like just what it is you're confused about, I'll try and help answer them- I'm not an expert but I know my heath insurance!

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