Banks and Health Insurance

[danaeris]

Washington Mutual is definitely the winner of the bank question. It and SF FCU are the only ones with truly free checking accounts, and Washington Mutual looks a little more convenient too.

Now I'm looking at my health insurance options.

In general, the way CPIC works is that you have a deductible. After you've paid that deductible in expenses, the next $5000 in expenses is 80% covered by CPIC. After that $5000, 100% is covered by CPIC. It's on the blue cross blue shield network, and covers just about everything.

deductible/maximum out of pocket expense/monthly fee
250/1250/103*
500/1500/77
1000/2000/62
1500/2500/57
2000/3000/53

*this is the one I have right now

All my planned parenthood stuff is covered by, well, planned parenthood, for free. Other than that, I'm mostly healthy. So I just need something to cover me in case of a really bad accident (getting hit by a car or something). Meanwhile, I'm real poor right now.

Anyone have an opinion on which one I should switch to if they'll let me?

Comments

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

If that's SF Fire Credit Union, they also have good interest rates for savings (and checking!), and generally good service, and you can use any credit union ATM for free. There is only the one main branch, and it's not that easy to get to. But I've been with 'em for years and have always been happy with the service.

You're poor and you still want to have health insurance? Most of the po'folks in SF rely on city/state health clinics; if you know the right clinics to go to they're pretty darn good (the others still give okay care but are more likely to be full of scary weird homeless people). Most of those have a pay-what-you-can-afford system (a percentage of your income for the month) so even the po'folks can manage it; and if you're flat broke, it's free. The care I got there compares favorably with mid-grade medical insurers anywhere else, and I'd go to them before Kaiser, for instance. The only dodgy bit is that emergency care at General can take a little bit longer than it might in a fancy rich-people hospital. I'd just skip the insurance, personally.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Well, that's why I wanted to downgrade. I'm looking at it as accident insurance.

koga got into a really bad accident when he didn't have health insurance, and it put his life on hold for several YEARS. First, the physical recuperation, then the bills to pay off. That's the sort of situation I'm trying to avoid.

Is there a way to avoid it without getting low level 'health' insurance?