Shopping for Health Insurance

Adolescents don't know the fundamentals of health insurance - and that makes it difficult to buy a policy.

Health and the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) achievement depend on many different things, and the inclusion of enough "young invincibles" in health insurance is one of them. According to the AAA, insurance companies must provide coverage on the single insurance markets to anyone wishing to register. Insurance companies are also limited in their ability to adjust premium rates according to old age.

This means that older persons who (on average) have higher health insurance contributions are paying lower premium than what their health insurance could provide, and young persons with lower health insurance contributions (on average) are paying premium rates that are sometimes higher than their anticipated health insurance contributions. Including young persons in health insurance therefore contributes to keeping health insurance expenses steady. During the first open registration phase at the beginning of 2014, for example, million young adult applicants were approached for registration in the ACA's health insurance markets.

Enrolment in health insurance can be tricky; picking a health insurance plan that provides the amount of cover you are likely to need at the right expense is a tough one. It is a challenge for those who have already gone through the trial several different ways, and probably even more so for young individuals who are making their first choice among the planning choices.

At the University of Pennsylvania, I headed a research group that looked at young people's experiences of joining HealthCare. gov, the German insurance broker. Pennsylvania was one of 34 states that did not have a state health insurance market at the point of our trial.

Unless you have employer-funded health insurance or are too old to stay in a parent's health insurance, in states like Pennsylvania you have the option to go to HealthCare. gov to select a health care scheme. In Philadelphia we examined 33 gifted young adult 19-30 year olds in the first year of HealthCare.gov.

Several of the individuals we tracked had health insurance at the beginning of the trial, but wanted to look at the insurance choices on HealthCare. gov because they had learned from friend that they could get better and less expensive cover on the market. Indeed, one of the results of our research is that young grown-ups often not only looked for cover from HealthCare. gov, but also compared these schemes with nonmarket alternatives, such as school, employer or their parents' health insurance schemes.

Between January and March 2014, we watched the young adult buying insurance at HealthCare. gov and asked them to "think aloud" to record their responses in Real Life. Subsequently, we asked the attendees about their thoughts on health insurance in general and their experiences on HealthCare.gov.

Just wasn't able to understand all things about healthcare. gov - I was puzzled. Young grown-ups we followed were looking for an accessible health insurance policy for them. However, they were very concerned about the costs of the premiums per month and the amount of the plan's excess (see below for their confusions about what excess actually means).

The majority regarded a $100 per annum bonus as priceless, but the cheapest scheme without Philadelphia taxes was nearer to $200 per annum. Others, on the other hand, did not benefit from rebates and remained without insurance, declaring that they could not buy any of the policy choices although they might have to incur a fine for not having insurance.

At the top of the ranking of desired insurance services was affordability of basic and provident healthcare. However, it is interesting to note that many respondents to the trial did not know that prevention was incorporated into all schemes at no extra charge under the AKA. Therefore, one of the recommended points of this survey was that the plan should emphasise the accessibility of free prevention such as fertility management and regular attendance, especially in those endeavours aimed at enrolling young people.

When one of the young grown-ups looked at his planning choices, he said: Obviously this is a $20 to see a medical officer, and this is 10% co-insurance after deductibles - and I just don't comprehend that. "Those ideas are essential for anyone who wants to make an educated health insurance decision.

Incorrect understanding of these conditions can result in a bad wake-up call after the purchase and the attempt to use the insurance. Whilst this is a small survey carried out in a unique town and state that uses health care. gov, it shows that even the high skilled youngsters in our survey had difficulties in choosing health insurance.

Our insights into the confused terminology of health insurance have also been shown in surveys of consumer demographics. Others have also proven, especially in experiment environments, that it is difficult for individuals to make optimum health insurance decisions even after having ensured that they have understood the fundamental health insurance approaches or are performing their insurance experimentation in a group of MBAs.

Your and our results help to describe how young people go through the insurance choice procedure and point to many areas where consumer support could be better in choosing health insurance. When it comes to health insurance competence, consumer support instruments could be as easy as pop-up declarations of catchwords such as "deductible" when you move your mouse over the item on the monitor.

It could give an estimation that considers the deductibles, co-insurance, co-payment and premiums of a scheme, as well as the frequency with which that individual forecasts that he or she will use his or her insurance (e.g. how often he or she visits the physician and how much medication he or she takes). To share our results with those preparing HealthCare. gov and the other state health insurance markets for the next open registration deadline in November 2015.