Alternatives to Private Health Insurance

Government Assistance

• The government offers Medicaid and Medicare for people who earn only up to a certain income and fit a set of specific qualifications. In general, you must be disabled, have an income below 130 percent of the federal poverty level, have children or be over 65 to qualify for the programs. You can use the Medicare Eligibility Tool at medicare.gov to determine if you can get assistance. These programs offer partial or full compensation for most medical procedures, though some doctors don't accept the coverage. Emergency hospitalizations, particularly those involving psychiatric emergencies, may also be paid for in full by the Emergency Medicaid program.
  
  

Financial Aid and Charity Care

• Hospitals provide financial aid to people in need who exhaust all other potential government benefits. In particular, families that earn below 200 percent of the federal poverty level can qualify for subsidized charity care, in which the hospital is reimbursed by the government for the amount of your bills. Even if you don't qualify for charity care, if you apply for financial aid within six months of receiving hospital treatment, there's a possibility that at least some of your costs will be defrayed.
  
  

Paying in Cash

• Paying hospital bills in cash can be prohibitively expensive for complex procedures like heart bypasses and cancer treatments, but for less complex operations and simple procedures, paying directly can be affordable, relative to an expensive private insurance plan. Hospitals will nearly always provide payment plans for large procedures that may be too expensive to pay all at once. Compared to an expensive private insurance plan that may cost $500 per month and have a significant deductible, this cost may not be so prohibitive, as long as you maintain a savings account for medical emergencies.