Saving You Money For Life

The Georgetown University Health Policy Institute has written A Consumer Guide for Getting and Keeping Health Insurance for each state and the District of Columbia. This gargantuan effort can be found at http://www.healthinsuranceinfo.net/. There are two drop down menus, each with a list of the fifty states and DC. From one, you can chose a state and read the guide online. From the other you can download a PDF file of that state’s consumer guide.

The guides were authored by the same group of people, who have presented differing state law regarding health insurance in a single format. Their approach is to take typical consumer questions regarding insurance coverage and answer them, including any specific applications there may be from that state’s particular law. The site pledges periodic updates on each state’s guide and indeed, for some of the states the guide is currently under construction for updating purposes.

The Institute is a non-profit venture based at Georgetown and supported by grants from, among others, The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation and AARP. While the consumer guides are the principal focus of the website, the Institute also produces a newsletter about changes in the industry. The current edition and archives can be found at http://www.healthinsuranceinfo.net/newsyoucanuse/intro.html. There is also a short list of links to sites that provide consumer support for specific insurance problems such as records privacy, disputes with your insurance company, and a summary of key consumer protections that are – or should be – included in every policy. It’s a valuable, well-focused website.

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