We have seen many international students make the biggest mistake of not picking up good health insurance. Unfortunately, it often costs them anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000. The mistake that happens here is that students think they are saving money when they do not buy expensive health insurance. However, such incidents will cost them much more money. The major reason is that it’s expensive, and it’s a little complicated to understand when you buy health insurance. Like, what do you really look for?
So there are two main things you should really understand when you select a health insurance plan. Hopefully, you don’t make any mistakes this time around.
Cheapest Health Insurance for International Students in USA
Before we enter that part, let’s quickly mention that if you reside in New York and are studying at, let’s say, NYU or Cornell, or any other university in the state of New York, you are eligible for $0 health insurance.
No kidding. An example is Kimber Health. This one is really mind-blowing, and many students love them. This $0 health insurance is not by Kimber Health itself; it’s actually by the government. So, this company works as a facilitator to get you this $0 insurance policy. This $0 means $0. You don’t have to pay anything. You receive your full healthcare insurance because you choose this $0 health insurance which is offered by United Healthcare, the government. So Kimber Health just facilitates the process. This is a massive opportunity for you as an international student.
Perhaps you already received NYU health insurance from the university, which is like $55,000. So, you should not have done that? Yes, if you already have one, what you can do is go to Kimber Health. You’ll see that they have a $0 health insurance plan. Select it, get it, and then they will help you obtain a waiver from your university. So, this means that you will get that money back from your school. If you study in New York, this is very much applicable to you.
We have mostly talked about New York here, right? What about other states in the United States? If you are not in New York, what happens to you?
Well, this company we just talked about also offers affordable health plans; they support different states and different universities. Even if you are not in New York, you can still go and check out the different plans offered by this health insurance provider. There are many different plans, and I’m going to explain to you what you need to look for in those plans. But then again, they can still help you to get the waiver from the expensive university health insurance to getting this one, and you can compare this plan with your university plans and then make a decision. But I guarantee you this is more affordable and much better.
So I would highly recommend you to go first link in the the description or in the comment section. And I know $0 might seem very scammy and sketchy so that’s why what I’ve done is I’ve actually talked to one of our subscribers who have gotten this $0 plan, he also studies in NYU, end of the video I put this conversation at the end of the video so you can hear from himself like how he used the $0 health insurance and how much beneficial it was for him and how much money he saving because of that. Now let’s really understand how the healthcare process works and how the healthcare insurance process works. Yes, say you got injured in United States, you got sick, fever, something happened to you, you go to doctor and usually they will not ask you to pay anything, sometimes they may ask like a minimum admission fee or something like that but then they will get your health insurance, see it is like a plastic card just like your driving license or something, you will usually when you buy a health insurance you get a plastic card like that. So you get that, they will take it, they will take the information, you get the services from your doctor, whatever you need to do, take x-rays, they will help you get healthy, your recover, etc. Then what happens is these hospitals or the doctor’s clinic, they will build the insurance saying that hey this patient came to us, they use your insurance and this is his bill. What insurance will do is like they will look what plan you have selected and based on that they will tell uh your hospital like yep, here’s the r portion of the bill and then rest will be paid by the patient. So then you get the bill from the hospital that hey your insurance paid this much and then rest is needs to be paid by you. So this is how process works and then you know, you don’t have to really go and claim and all of that, it is all done by the hospital, they all take care of it and then you finally get a bill and unless you don’t believe that the bill is true, then yeah you might have to like actually call your health insurance and get into that detail.
But now comes the most interesting part and this is where like I think most people misunderstands the health insurance so coverage, you have to really understand how the coverage of health insurance works. These two main terms, uh, which is deductible and co-pay or co-insurance. When you buy a health
insurance, you will pay either per month or per year for your buying that health insurance. The more expensive one it is, the lower deductible amount will be. And what people usually think is that, oh this is only $30, I’m going to choose the lowest one because that’s all I have to pay and I still get health insurance. If you read properly, the deductible will be $5,000 or $10,000, and nobody understands what is that deductible even mean.
So let’s say you bought an insurance, your deductible is $5,000. You went to the doctor and the doctor gave you the bill of $500. Because your deductible is $5,000, you have no options but to pay it from your pocket. So you’ll pay $500, then you went again, it’s $1,000. So now the total is $1,500. You went again, now another bill came, that is $2,000. All right, now $2,500, which is $3,500. You went again, let’s say now it’s another $2,000. So now the total amount is $5,500. So $5,000 you have paid it. $500, this is where the co-pay or co-insurance will come in. What happens is, if you read carefully, there will be a plan which says 80% will be health insurance, 20% will be you after you have met the deductible. So after $5,000 is done, then 80% of whatever the bill is, will be paid by health insurance, 20% will be paid by you. Similarly, there are plans, the cheaper the plan is, the higher co-insurance you will have to pay. 40% you pay, 60% they pay. Another term is co-pay. So co-pay is like regardless of what your deductible and everything is, that you always pay because it’s a co-pay, like you are also paying and your health insurance is also paying. But again, most of you will select co-insurance and deductible plan.
So now that you understand the two main terms which is deductible and that is like out of your pocket, so if you go back first link in the description which is like Kim, like if you go to the Kimber heals affordable plan, there will be, you can see the deductible. They also have $0 deductible plan which means you don’t have to pay anything from the start of your insurance. Anytime you go, your insurance will always be part of it. Now it depends on which co-pay or co-insurance percentage plan you selected. That is the main part.
Now again, this only applies to doctor visit and hospitals and all of that. If you have to take medicine, prescription like the medicine which your doctor will say like oh you have diarrhea because of that, this is the medicine you have to take and you have to go to like a pharmacy and get that medicine in the prescription. That is also like something like $10, $20, $30 again based on the plans you selected. That is how much you pay have to pay and then how much insurance will pay. So that is the things you need to take a look at it when you buy your health insurance. Don’t just go for the cheapest one because cheapest one will always cost you more if something were to go wrong. And if you are from New York, please get this $0 Insurance because it’s for you, it’s meant for you, and you know it’s a zero like why would you not get it. And in fact, you will be paying health insurance for your University, just get that money back and use it for yourself, and you know, enroll in courses or whatever you want to do. But again, if you’re in New York, you should absolutely, it’s a no-brainer.
And then if you’re in outside of New York, you can still look at their, uh, you can go and select the university you are in and if you don’t find the university you are in, that’s okay, you can still reach out to them and see if they can help you get the waiver for the University you are in. And as I promise, anytime I partner, I always make sure that I have actually validated everything I saying. And so that’s why I’m bringing a subscriber who actually used the $0 health insurance and how it benefited him. Enjoy this conversation.
Eight months ago, one of my classmates approached me saying that hey, did you heard about this uh plan, it’s a zero, it’s by United Healthcare and there is Kimber Health that facilitates the process. It’s from New York State and all, uh, I was confused and I thought it was a scam or it it will affect my immigration as well, right? And then I went back home, I told this to one of my roommates and he’s, he’s like a uh, he does a lot of research on these kind of things and he comes back and says it’s a legit thing and it doesn’t affect your immigration status and it’s mentioned on New York Government website. So we referred to it, then we had a conversation with Kimber health and then we got the insurance, right? And uh, now you must be saving that money because you’re obviously getting zero health insurance, is that right? Correct, it is right. I mean we saved one semester’s amount and the other one we spent on a trip which I think is right, right, right. Yeah, but overall, that’s a saving however you spend it, that’s a different story, right. And then um, I know behind the scene you told me like you’ve used the it for your medical expenses as well and you had to pay $0 for your expenses as well, like how did that process happen, why did you use it? Uh, so the it, it was kind of a sad story, once I had to visit ER unfortunately and then uh, when I went there, I have no idea how healthcare in US works, nothing. I just gave them my card, it’s a white card, United Healthcare on it and they took it and they admitted me into ER, they treated me, they sent me back home. Now I have no idea, they didn’t ask for money at any point, they didn’t tell me how much it will cost, who will cover it, nothing. When I come back home, I get a mail after like a week or 10 days stating that we paid so and so amount of dollars. It’s like a four-figure, you know how expensive it is, right, right. Yeah, so it was like a four-figure uh, but it’s all covered, that’s good thing. I didn’t have to pay even $1, correct. It just said that we paid all this amount for you, you don’t have to worry, you don’t have to pay anything. Nice. Yeah. Would you recommend people who are watching this to if they are studying in New York should they get this? 100%, it’s, it’s basically free money if it doesn’t affect anything in the future and then if I think if New York state government says something, it’s pretty solid. If they don’t share this with anybody then I think it’s, it’s pretty solid.
Yeah. If you enjoy this video, I also want to make sure that you don’t get scammed in United States, so I’ve made that video. Please go and check that video or also check the video which is making the five big mistakes which International students make, so I hope you don’t make these as well. I’ll see you guys in the next one until then keep smiling and keep hustling. Got to hustle every single day.
