To compare the costs for individual health insurance coverage required starting January 1, 2014, you need to gather your related medical expenses. If you do not have existing coverage, it is easy to put this information together. If you have coverage through a provider and your plan is one that is going to be discontinued, you can use your insurance statements to gather the costs.
Start out by making columns and rows on a sheet of paper. At the top, put headings for regular office visits, prescriptions, hospital stays, laboratory tests, x-rays, emergency room visits, and any other medical expense you experienced in the past year. Once you have your headings completed, write down the total amount of money you spent for each of these items. If you have existing coverage, look on your insurance statements at the amount billed to your insurance company, and use this for your cost estimate, not what they paid, or the money you spent on co-pays.
Once you have all of your expenses entered, add up the totals of each column to determine your total medical expenses for the year and place this figure off to the side. Under your column totals make eight new rows and to the left write down Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum on every other row. The blank rows will be used to calculate your out-of-pocket expenses under the new plans. Each of these individual health insurance coverage plans pays a specific percentage of your medical visits. For the Bronze row, multiple each column total by 60 percent and enter it in the appropriate location. Repeat this process for Silver using 70 percent, Gold using 80 percent, and Platinum using 90 percent.
Once this is completed, subtract the total cost of medical expenses in each column from the percentage amount covered to determine your out-of-pocket costs for each plan. Finally, add up each row of out-of-pocket expenses, and enter this amount off to the side, and compare these amounts between each of the plans. Using your estimated out-of-pocket expenses, along with the premium costs for each type of coverage, you are able to determine and select the plan that will save you the most money on your medical expenses.