Health Insurance

How to find and keep affordable health insurance

The editors at the Health Insurance Resource Center have gathered the best information from across the Internet, plus an ever-expanding collection of original content, to help you put together the pieces of the health insurance puzzle:

Finding affordable coverage for your family can be confusing. We provide several tools to help you make better choices.

• glossary of medical insurance terms
• information on high risk insurance pools.
• Frequently-asked questions on health insurance
• get a quote on health insurance
• Self-employed health insurance

What can you do to provide low cost health insurance for your family?

Here at the Health Insurance Resource Center, we strive to make you a better-informed consumer to aid you in your quest to secure and keep adequate health insurance protection for your family, regardless of your personal situation.

Lack of health insurance an epidemic - what should be done?

Nearly 16 percent of Americans -- about 47 million people -- are uninsured. According to a story last year in USAToday, the people without health insurance aren't just the poor -- they are all of us. Medical bills are the cause of more than half of all personal bankruptcies in the United States. Access to health insurance and health care that is safe and affordable is easily the biggest domestic crisis facing us

Lacking a national push, many states have began seeking ways to tackle the health insurance problem on their own, and we talk about some of these initiatives on our state-specific pages. We also have links to the contact forms for your elected officials, so you can easily lend your support, or offer alternative ideas, on how how to solve the nation's individual health insurance crisis.

Urge Congress and the states to act -- a call to action

On our state-specific pages you'll also find information on where and how to contact representatives in each state legislature and in the U.S. Congress, so that you can urge them to work toward better health care access options, whether through universal health care, guaranteed issue or expansion of state risk pools. Contact a member of the House of Representatives. Contact a US Senator. Contact the White House.

You'll also find information about the quality of health care in each listed state, and links to health insurance information for those states which can be found elsewhere on the Web which our editors have reviewed and chosen for you.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon is conducting a one-of-a-kind lottery, and the prize is health insurance. The state will start drawing names this week for the chance to enroll in a health care program designed for people not poor enough for Medicaid but too cash-strapped to buy their own insurance. More than 80,000 people have signed up since registration for the lottery opened in January. Only a few thousand will be chosen for the program. Read the story.

The Tribune-Democrat -- Offering low-cost health insurance to the state’s working poor would cost the state almost $500 million next year, but that’s still a bargain, state Department of Health Secretary Dr. Calvin Johnson said.“The cost of doing nothing is much greater than the cost of implementing health-care reform in Pennsylvania,” Johnson said Tuesday during a stop at Memorial Medical Center.Read the story.