For middle to low-income families, or for anyone struggling in this tough economy, sudden illness or accident along with big medical expenses can spell disaster. Many people have to put up their cars, homes, and even furniture for sale to make ends meet.

But this does not have to be the case. You may be entitled to Medicaid coverage that you don’t even know about.

Medicaid is part of the extensive Social Security program in the country that is targeted at helping low-income families receive healthcare. And if you’re a taxpayer, you pay dearly to provide these government-sponsored services to people across the nation.

The new healthcare legislation—not only “Obamacare,” but all new health bills—is incredibly complicated and even some politicians do not know what’s in it. You may qualify for help with Medicaid and not even realize it.

How would you find out? On a site called americanlisted.com, seemingly a run-of-the-mill classifieds site, you can find a list of people working in your corner to make sense of complicated legislation and to see if you qualify for any medical assistance.

Some people are too proud to go this route and continue to pay increasing amounts of cash for lesser private policies. But if you are a taxpayer, you are already paying for Medicaid. If you are entitled to a little relief, you should do what you can to find out how to use it.

And while this leaves the country standing out as cruel and unusual to many across the globe and even within America, the statistics seem fairly clear. The U.S. healthcare system has the best doctors in the world, the best ER care, the best procedures, and hundreds of thousands of people from countries practicing socialized medicine make the trek to the States every year to either work in the medical industry or to receive a procedure they could not receive at home.

No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, the statistics are overwhelming. The nation’s healthcare industry is in crisis due to the outrageous rates people have to pay for private insurance, but the level of care has never been called into question.

For a sampling of what many people, including doctors, are so afraid of, just look at the numbers of private insurance compared to public insurance. For a private policy, wherein the insured gets to choose his or her own doctors and own procedures, the cost is roughly $2,500/year. Now, for a government-sponsored plan, wherein a board of politicians chooses the doctors and procedures, the cost per plan is $7,000/year.

According to some doctors, changing America’s healthcare system overnight without first cleaning up the fraud and waste will lead to poorer care, fewer doctors, and trillions more added onto the already enormous 14-trillion-dollar debt in the country.

New Jersey Doctors Fight Back

A lawsuit filed last year by New Jersey Physicians Inc., challenging the constitutionality of “Obamacare,” was finally heard last Wednesday in a federal appeals court. The crux of the matter was simple: doctors and patients believed that it was unconstitutional to force people to buy insurance.

The suit is still pending, and along with the New Jersey suit, a dozen other states have filed lawsuits against the federal government opposing this healthcare legislation.

Whether for or against government-run healthcare, the fears of many people involved in the industry are legitimate. Supposedly, the new health legislation is supposed to lower prices across the board. However, people are to be forced to buy policies to fund the government-sponsored side of the equation, and the new forced policies imposed on business owners are causing rates to skyrocket.

The NJ doctors are arguing not only against the constitutionality of the bill, but also that the bill will ultimately:

• Cause a flood of patients in American hospitals
• Create long waiting lists for procedures
• Create government panels whose job is to “okay” procedures and policies
• Cause doctors to entertain other careers
• Cause government-sponsored healthcare to explode past the already inflated $7k per policy
• Add billions of dollars to the deficit every year and trillions to the debt
• And damage the overall system by promoting quantity over quality

Only time will tell how the legislation holds up in the court of law, but one thing’s for sure: At this current point in time, the new healthcare legislation has caused insurance prices to skyrocket across the board, having the exact opposite effect of what was promised to Americans only one short year ago.

There is no question that private health care costs are exceedingly high and only growing higher every year. But to say private insurance companies are crooks—while a great talking point for a proponent of single-payer, government-run care—is simply misleading.

For example: The average American pays roughly $2,000 yearly for a solid health insurance plan which also covers family members. With a policy such as this, little is denied. Yes, it’s very expensive, but the care is rock solid. Government-sponsored plans, on the other hand, cost upwards of $7,000 per policy and do not include any freedoms whatsoever to choose doctors or treatments.

So while we all bicker over people not having health care and how they should receive it, the only certainty we face in America is that insuring everyone is going to cost an insane amount of money.

Are we looking at 2k per plan or 7k? Either way, it is a lot of money. The government’s plans are highly controlled and drastically limited, and that’s why most people who can afford private insurance are “happy” to stick with it instead of turning it over to government.

Right now, you are probably struggling with health care costs and want to know why they are increasing so readily. Are insurance companies really that greedy? Are they sticking it to you to make up losses? Let’s go over some of the reasons your costs are climbing.

Why Costs are Increasing

Universal Health Share

This isn’t about political debate. This is fact-driven information. And America’s emergency room care bests the entire globe’s care, save ongoing diseases, obviously. For people who cannot afford to pay for ER visits and other procedures, the costs are passed on to you as a premium holder.

In short, America already does have limited single-payer care, and private industry makes sure you foot the bill – the same way it would be if government were forcing you to foot it, only your charges would show up via your paycheck instead of your insurance premium.

No One Left Behind

In other countries, premature births, transplants, dialyses, and other procedures have to get the go-ahead from government in order to keep costs down, meaning some people will simply die so that the system doesn’t bankrupt itself. In the USA, premium holders’ costs are high because doctors do not pick and choose who to save. They act first and insurance works to make up the costs later.

Inflation

Although the government does not track medical costs—nor gas costs or food costs—as “inflation” for political reasons, the fact of the matter is that inflation affects health care costs drastically, and the costs are passed on to you.

Life Expectancy

With people living longer, more money is being spent in Social Security. And government, although it says otherwise, actually privatizes much of its Medicare/Medicaid programs so that more people can be taken care of. Insurance companies eat losses as a result and then pass the costs on to you.

There are many reasons your prices are going up for insurance, but you can always do things to make sure they come down, none the least of which being preventative care.

Read around here for tips about saving on insurance and always remember to take great care of yourself so that you can save in the long run.

This means you are basically left with state-specific options. So if a Virginia company is offering hundreds off a deal compared to a New York company, you would have to move to reap the benefits.

However, there are still many ways you can save money on an insurance policy in your state. You just have to know what your priorities are and you have to be willing to put in the time to find the best deals.

Prioritize

This is the first step you need to take to ensure you’re getting a good deal on health insurance. Write down what is important to you. Do you wish to see doctors of your choice instead of choosing from a list of doctors or even having your doctor provided? Is making your own healthcare choices important to you? Do you need your family to have more coverage? Do you or someone in your family have a preexisting condition? You need to find insurance based on your priorities, and then you can begin to compare policies.

Seek out Help

In many cases, life insurance is literally life or death. Finding help to get the best insurance for the best price is a smart move, so do not be afraid to contract a broker to help you here. The legal mumbo-jumbo can be daunting and confusing; a broker can help you get through this and illuminate the policy for you in simple language. Just make sure your broker is reputable and handles a lot of cases.

Seek out the Deals

Many insurance companies are providing free trials, so to speak, allowing you to see how the package works before you decide to pay into it. This free look means you can get your money back unless you are fully satisfied.

No matter which plan you decide to pick, however, nothing insures your health like preventative care. It’s true that genetic disorders and accidents and some situations are completely out of your hands. But the vast majority of cases doctors see every year can be prevented if people would only focus more on their health. Staying in good health is how you will ultimately save the most money, but these tips will certainly assist you in finding a more affordable package where you live.