Sources of health insurance plans are places where you can get coverage to help pay for medical costs. These sources can be your job, the government, or private insurance companies that offer different plans for you to choose from.
Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. We offer quizzes, questions, instructional videos, and articles on a range of academic subjects, including math, biology, chemistry, physics, history, economics, finance, grammar, preschool learning, and more. We provide teachers with tools and data so they can help their students develop the skills, habits, and mindsets for success in school and beyond. Khan Academy has been translated into dozens of languages, and 15 million people around the globe learn on Khan Academy every month. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, we would love your help!
So there are three ways that you might be able
to get yourself health insurance.
The first way is that you just get it directly,
and that would be an individual plan.
You pay the premium, you get the insurance.
The second way is many employers will provide insurance.
They will pay all of the premium
or a large chunk of the premium.
In certain cases, they might even pay a large chunk
or the full premium for family members.
And then the third way is the government.
You have programs like Medicare
for primarily senior citizens,
some other cases where other folks might qualify as well.
You have Medicaid for low-income folks.
You have also government programs for, say, veterans.
Now, as I just alluded to,
probably the biggest difference
is who actually makes the payment.
The government programs, it's the government
who's making the premium payment.
In the employer case, it's the employer.
And they're doing that with pre-tax money, which matters.
They're giving this to you as a benefit,
and you do not pay taxes on the money
that they are paying for your insurance.
Well, with an individual plan, you pay that out-of-pocket.
You pay that for, you pay that yourself.
Now, if you meet certain income guidelines
and if you pay enough of a premium
above a certain percentage of your income,
some of that might be tax-deductible,
but it is not fully tax-deductible
the same way that when your employer pays for it,
you don't have to pay any taxes on that premium
that they're providing you at all.
Now, on the individual side,
because you are essentially deciding
what type of insurance you want,
it would give you the maximum choice.
Now, in certain cases, that choice is limited
because when you're getting an individual plan,
they're deciding what the premium is
or whether to even insure you based on your situation,
whether you have pre-existing conditions,
your risk factor, et cetera,
while with a government or with an employer plan,
they're not looking at your individual circumstances.
With an employer, the insurance company will say,
okay, what's the average risk of all of the employees?
And if you're a higher-risk employee,
the employer is going to pay the same premium for you
as they're paying for everyone else,
and so you get that same coverage.
One potential negative of an employer plan
is that it might be a little bit more limited
in terms of the coverage options,
but that's not always the case.
Finally, government, you are going to have
probably more limits on what type of healthcare
you might get, but once again,
they are fully paying the premium there.
Last but not least, we could talk about deductibles.
Generally speaking, the government plans
are going to have the lowest deductibles.
In some cases, they will have no deductibles.
In the case of an employer-sponsored plan
or an individual plan, it really depends
on which plan you actually get.
So for a lot of folks, if you're not retired,
if you're not low-income, employer-sponsored plans
are probably where you wanna go,
but if your employer doesn't offer those plans
or you're self-employed and you need to get
that insurance yourself, then of course,
individual plans is what you need to do.
