Health Insurance: Would health insurance costs be lower if it was really for Emergency use and not checkups

Would health insurance costs be lower if it was really for Emergency use and not checkups?
It seems like health insurance is a high cost item because people go in for every little sniffle, instead of when they are seriously injured or sick.

Should Health Insurance companies pay for regular checkups and physicals, and pass the cost to customers, or should people just pay those out of pocket?
Politics - 13 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
yes
2 :
Insurance companies want people to get checkups to stay healthy and prevent illnesses that will cost a lot more to treat.
3 :
I think their reasoning is that it is cheaper in the long run to provide preventative health care
4 :
No, it's actually the other way around.
5 :
Nope, my three day stay in the hospital cost me 25 thousand and all I had was the flu. Not swine flu, just the flu. Insurance won't sell me insurance because I have a heath condition. Besides Insurance isn't in the business of heath, they are in the business of making money. Better know has Death insurance.
6 :
Actually, healthcare cost a lot because companies HAVE to pay for people who do not have insurance, at the Emergency Room. (I have two EM docs in my family) Emergency docs get paid about twice what family practice docs do, and the overhead at an ER in the hospital is much more than a private practice. Our insurance could be much less if we'd just give everybody the freedom to have yearly checkups at their family practice doc instead of waiting until things get out of hand and expensive and they show up at the ER with a tumor or go there for a cold.
7 :
they would be lower if the malpractice insurance was lower. this is caused by incompetence and or frivolous lawsuits.
8 :
Of course not. One of the main reasons health care is so expensive is that people that are underinsured or uninsured don't go to the doctor until their problem is too far gone. They don't visit the doctor for colds, for the flu, for healthy check ups, thus, causing routine issues to balloon into serious medical problems....not to mention the fact that many of them still attend their jobs, as they can't afford to call in sick for minor illnesses.
9 :
Most health issues can be prevented or cured if caught in time. Preventing the problems is usually more inexpensive, that's where the gold is in insurance.
10 :
Checkups and lab tests are very expensive now, so no. My last checkup was billed as $250. - although the insurance adjustment brought it down below $100. The lab tests also started over $100. A person without an insurance company to reduce charges could easily owe over $1000 for a relatively minor sinus and ear infection with a visit, some prescriptions and a followup.
11 :
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If problems are caught soon enough, they can be treated far more effectively than when they become serious issues.
12 :
Yes. You're talking about high-deductible policies with only catastrophic coverage. Those are indeed cheaper than policies that cover just about everything. Some of the high-deductible policies also include coverage for annual checkups.
13 :
healthplans.my-age.net - here is my health insurance plan. As I remember they can provide such a service.

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Saturday, January 8, 2011

Would health insurance costs be lower if it was really for Emergency use and not checkups