I just signed up for a plan for my wife and I (26/25 respectively), and it's going to cost us around $250/mo with a reasonable deductible, office copay's and prescription coverage. Dental is an extra $50/mo.
The trick(?) for me was to contact the largest insurance company here in my home state (not California) and ask to speak to their small business department. We built a custom plan rather than using one of their "off-the-shelf" plans that most people would pick. This let me play with the numbers based on our medical history and what we felt we could cover as far as our deductible goes.
Really though, call a few of the largest companies and just start walking through the process.
One tip -- do it before your current insurance expires. At least here, if you are currently covered then there is no way they can decline you(?). The monthly cost may be unreasonable, but they have to at least offer you coverage.
http://www.mrmib.ca.gov/MRMIB/MRMIP.shtml is worth looking into if you find yourself unable to get health insurance as a result.
Most of health insurance premiums go to pay for very expensive treatments, usually at the end of life. Routine medical bills don't add up to much: but bills can add up to $250k pretty quick if you get cancer.
I'm in my 20's and haven't had any major health problems, but don't want some random disaster to wipe out my consulting business. I also pay really high taxes on my profits, like to save money, and enjoy buying stocks.
With an HSA, I can put away ~$2,700 a year for health expenses, and that money isn't taxed. I pay Aetna $62 a month, which is $744 a year. How much would I have been taxed on the $2,700 I put away? Probably $700-800 dollars. So it has the benefits of a traditional IRA. While the money is in my HSA, I can make some conservative investments such as buying an ETF that tracks the S&P 500 or if I want more growth, maybe invest in the BRIC's (Brazil/Russia/India/China) or some tech stocks. That money can grow tax free and is reserved in case of emergency.
What if I live a perfectly healthy life and nothing happens? Well, I can withdraw all of that money tax-free when I'm 59.5 (yes that's a long way off). So it has the benefits of a Roth IRA as well.
If you don't have many health problems and have a few thousand in earnings that you can put away each year, I think it's a great deal.
...until something (medically) bad happens, and then I realize getting ripped off by them is not nearly as bad as not having insurance at all.
if you ever decide to go talk to an agent/broker, sometimes they can help you find plans that are right for you, but sometimes mistakes happen, so double check everything. my mom's agent screwed up and she actually went without insurance for something like half a year..i can't imagine what would have happened if anything bad occurred..we didn't catch it until she went for a regular checkup and there was a question about the insurance.
For me if the UK didn't have free health care then I would be probably be paying a lot for all the health care (for a fact I know some medicines I take cost the NHS thousands of pounds a month to buy).
Not to put a downer on things. Good luck setting up your own business.
the American system forces the individual to be responsible for their health (smoker? that'll cost) and keeps workers focussed on pleasing their employers.
So I'm glad that I live in a country which contributes as a whole towards the nations health.
Update: LPTS says we should get political, so lets.
I think we should take rich people, steal large percentages of their money, with guns or threats of jail, if necessary, and use it to buy medicine for anyone who needs it.
Underneath all the bullshit (including the libertarian bullshit that will be presently downmodding me), the reason Americans don't have universal healthcare (which, despite the duckspeak from the media, is better at all measures except treating the very rich) is pure racism. The same racist fucks who put George Bush in office will go absolutely batshit at the idea of their money being used to help people that aren't as white as they are. These racist sentiments are then manipulated by the media for the benefit of a controlling elite. This is the real reason the US lacks a social safety net.
Look at what you're saying. I would be broke or dead in America, but let's not get political about it. No, lets get political about it.
Every option for self employed people suck. The entrepreneurial culture suffers because a person with a preexisting condition and a job can't quit to start up a company. This is very stupid and we should all be very pissed off about it.
So if you are medically unlucky, it's OK, many people pay into the insurance system, and then the medically unlucky people get money back out.
It's very similar to everyone pays taxes for medical insurance, except that instead of one government medical insurance company we have different ones that compete with each other and subscription is voluntary.
There are various important details. Maybe we get some of them wrong. But the general idea is OK and wouldn't screw you over in principle.
This is a very real problem for entrepreneurs who want to buy their own healthcare, and also for very small companies. I know of one company that was basically prevented from hiring an extremely talented individual because that individual was flagged as a high risk to be "medically unlucky", and if she joined the company than everyone in the company would be ineligible for healthcare - in this particular instance if you're less than five people than you can't buy a group policy with one of those five being a high-risk individual.
So these high risk individuals are either able to join a large company where they can be covered in a large group plan (better hope you're a skilled worker, since very low-end employers have incentives to hire part-timers or contractors to avoid paying benefits), or they have no coverage and go to the emergency room when catastrophic problems emerge, at great cost to the taxpayers who pay for those emergency rooms which (for quite good moral reasons) don't turn away patients who can't afford visits.
Maybe this is one of the things you grouped under "various important details", but I think it's more than a detail - denying coverage to risky people is going to be an inherent consequence of introducing profit motives into health insurance.
I don't necessarily think socialized medicine is the answer, given the inefficiencies it introduces. The best middle ground might be greater regulation of insurance companies to prohibit them from denying coverage to sick individuals. But given the risks on each side, I would frankly much rather err in the direction of too much socialization.
I think this is Ayn Rand hate gone awry. You don't know anything about me. And all I really said here is people should be responsible for themselves; that's not some crazy fringe idea, and it's not limited to Objectivists.
And I said it specifically about economics and smoking. Smoking is a choice. I think if people want to damage their health by smoking they should be allowed to, but they should have to pay for it. Do you really think that's crazy and would destroy society?
http://www.usabghome.com/states.php?state=ca
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Look for an HSA or ask someone for help on those.