Election-year politics generate heat but not much light on matters of cost-containment, incentives and real choice when it comes to medical care. Smart consumers know there’s no such thing as “free” care—everyone pays, sooner or later.

One of the surest ways to get a good deal–in any commercial transaction–is to understand the mindset of the seller. When it comes to buying health coverage, this means understanding how insurance companies measure the medical payments they make…and use these measurements to set the prices of the policies they sell.

With so much media attention being given to health care and health care reform, ordinary people aren’t sure how to get the best coverage for their circumstances and needs. This new column aims to explain and analyze the health insurance marketplace in a way that gives consumers the tools they need for making good buying decisions.

Recently, it was announced that the Obama administration is changing and improving the way customers appeal to their health insurance companies when they’re denied a claim or when their health insurance coverage gets canceled. According to an article in the Associated Press entitled, “Feds move to improve health insurance appeals,” the legislation will start in 2011, to give time to insurance companies so they can deal with its complexities.

With our economy the way it is these days, sometimes people forget that the backbone of our economy are small businesses. Small businesses not only grow into large businesses, they also do quite a bit of the hiring as well, something that is desperately needed in today’s economy. Sadly, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times entitled, “Health insurance rate hikes hitting California small businesses could hurt state’s economic recovery,” small businesses are facing yet another hurtle that, as the title of the article says, could hurt the economic recovery of not just business in California, but elsewhere as well.

We don’t usually cover COBRA related topics here, because honestly it doesn’t pop up in the news that often, but that’s likely to change in the coming months, especially with how the recently-signed health care reform law changes things for COBRA recipients. The story we’re looking at today, “Health Insurance Dilemma: COBRA Subsidies Will Soon Run Out for Many” from DailyFinance, talks about how COBRA is about to run out for many people, and what people can do once they do lose coverage.

One of the big parts of the debate over health insurance and health care reform is the high cost of health care, medicine and so on. In their recent spate of rate increases, Wellpoint blamed the high cost of health care as the primary reasons why their rates are increasing as much as thirty-nine percent. Part of this equation is the medicine that goes into health care, and is a large part of the costs of health care that are trying to be brought down. While it’s difficult to convince drug companies to reduce their costs — since they do make so much money, it’s understandable — the Governor of Montana has an idea that might help…get drugs from Canada.

Hello and welcome to this installment of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. In this installment, we’ll look at a few articles that have to do with money and health care or health insurance, usually regarding how to save it, which is something everyone is concerned with these days. Our first article comes to us from the Charlotte Observer and is entitled, “Savings accounts may be future of health care.”

Are you between jobs and are worried about medical insurance? Have your health benefits been lessened? If you answered, “yes” to any of these, you may be in need of short term medical insurance plans. Well, we’re here to help. In this article, we will teach you how to find short term medical insurance plans and quotes online. We’ll teach you everything that you need to know so that you can get insured quickly without breaking your pocket book. After all, medical insurance is extremely important. Let’s get started.