Coverage Choices
Feeling 'Complacent'
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When things are going well, it's easy not to worry. "The past year has been quiet for me," says Chas Sforza, 51, of South Riding. "I'm a quiet, content guy."
The owner of an IT consulting firm, Sforza was concerned this time last year about what might be in store for him in the individual insurance market, a more fickle and high-cost market than group coverage. Still on his mind then was the heart attack he had suffered in 2006. That incident tested his Anthem BlueCross BlueShield PPO, an individual policy for which he pays $410 a month and requires him to pay 20 percent of covered services up to $1,500 a year.
Sforza used to worry that his heart attack had locked him into that policy. "I can't change," he noted. The reason: He would face underwriting in the individual market, where your health history often determines whether you can get coverage and at what price. Younger, healthier people are at an advantage in that market, cost-wise, while heart attack survivors and the chronically ill commonly are denied coverage.
So Sforza has stuck with his PPO and says it has continued to work well, even though he hasn't tested it in the past 12 months. Last year's concerns about being locked into his policy have faded.
"I guess I'm complacent," Sforza admits.
