If there is one area that seems to stump most of us in the world of professional international basketball it is health insurance. Most teams provide for medical care for a player and his family during the season. But what do you do during the off-season. There are a couple of options that are currently available:
1. Go without medical care during the summer. Much to my father’s dismay (he works in the health insurance field) Joe and I did this at the beginning of our marriage. It was just the two of us and we were both young and healthy, so we simply paid out-of-pocket for whatever check-ups we needed when we were home in the summer. There is obviously risk involved if there is a major issue though. If you do decide to go this route though, you could take a sum of money that would otherwise go towards health insurance and put it in an account for a medical emergency.
2. Go with short term health insurance. Several states offer health care plans that you can purchase for just a few months at a time. This isn’t available in all states,but it might be worth checking out if your state of primary residence offers it. This option does require you planning ahead of time before you get back to the U.S. though so you make sure your insurance is activated and covering you for the whole time you are home.
3. Go with a catastrophic plan. There are also states where you can get health insurance that is basically just going to cover you for emergency-type situations. For normal check-ups and appointments, you will still pay out-of-pocket. But if something big happens, you will have some sort of help.
4. Go with health insurance for the whole year. We now simply pay for health insurance for everyone for the whole year. Although you are paying for something that you don’t use for a large part of the year, we prefer to have the option of going back to the U.S. to have something taken care of that might come up overseas. If one of tus would come down with a disease or other condition, we would feel more comfortable having it dealt with at home and in our own language.
** We had just signed up for health insurance when I found out I was pregnant with our fourth child. For that reason, I was not able to be on the health insurance plan. Since we decided to go back to the U.S. to have our fourth child, I navigated the waters of paying for a birth in the U.S. out-of-pocket. If you would like more information on how this is done, please contact me through my Contact Page.