Health Insurance in Argentina

A reader wrote in today about getting health insurance in Argentina. This is going to be a very important topic for everyone who moves here, so I'll do my best to address this.

Reader's Comment

I've heard the cost of healthcare is very low in Argentina, but I haven't been able to find out much regarding health insurance options for self-employed expats... Have you? Your site is always very informative.

Healthcare For Individuals

If you're an expat moving here on assignment for your company, you probably have to worry about health coverage -- you'll get whatever health plan your company is using. On the other hand, if you're moving here to retire or you're self-employed, you're going to need health coverage. The good news is that health care costs here are multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than what you're used to paying in the USA. Of course, if you're reading this from Europe, you're going to have to start paying for health care now. Argentina doesn't have the same kind of welfare state that you're used to.

US readers, however, will be very happy to hear that Argentina health insurance prices are priced at what I call a "chump change" level. Apparently the US health care insanity has not yet reached this far south (praise God) and ordinary people can afford health care here without going into bankruptcy. Just how cheap is health insurance here? Cheaper than your wildest dreams...

Unlike other employers, I give each of my employees a set allowance for health insurance and let them buy the plan they like. They can either go with the Cadillac plan with a high-end insurance company and use up all the allowance I provide, or they can pick the Kia plan and pocket the savings for themselves. My own personal philosophy is that each of my employees is better able to make individual decisions about their own health spending, so I don't pigeonhole everyone into the same plan. I asked a few employees in my office what they were paying for health insurance each month and what plans and companies they were with.

Read It And Weep!

One employee is paying $70 pesos ($25 USD) for a lower-end plan. Another is paying $130 pesos ($45 USD) for a high-end plan with a better company (according to him, anyway). Both of these prices are for men in their mid-twenties, however. My managing director is out for the day, so I couldn't ask her what she was paying. I do know for a fact that women pay more than men (due to maternity costs) and that older people are going to pay more as well.

Feel free to let your jaws drop open now. Yes, you can get top notch healthcare for less than $100 USD per month! How good is the health care here? Doctors will come to your house when you are sick and treat you in your bed! No, I am not kidding. Doctors come to you! I will never forget the conversation I had with my manager when I was first told about this. She told me she paid something like $15 pesos extra or something for the doctor to see her at her house. When I expressed shock at this, she couldn't believe we didn't have this service in the US. "But if you're sick you don't feel like getting out of bed to go see the doctor, so they should come see you." It sounds perfectly reasonable, but if you're used to US healthcare, this is a whole new concept (or at least a long forgotten one).

Every time I hear Bush on the TV saying that, "The United States has the best healthcare system in the world," I just laugh now. Its such a lie. We could solve the medicare crisis tomorrow by sending all our old people to Argentina. Clearly the people in charge of healthcare here have found a way to treat people cost effectively.

Health Insurance Resources

The following health insurance companies were suggested by my employees. It seems that each of them uses a different company, so there was no consensus in my office about which was the best. It all depends on what coverage level you are willing to pay for and what kind of services you want or expect.

• Sistema de Proteccion Medica
• OSDE Binario (in English!)
• Unión Personal
• Accord Salud

Again, I am not endorsing any of these companies, and I know there are more companies out there, but each of these companies are used by an employee in my office, so they seem fairly happy with them. As an American, I'm sure that any of these plans will be better in terms of cost/benefit than what you're using to paying in the States.

What Credentials Does A Term Life Insurance Agent Need To Have?

When it comes to choosing the right term life insurance company, or a term life insurance agency that can provide the right products and services to you at rates that you can handle, there are some important considerations that you absolutely must be willing to make before you settle down on any one policy.

Term Life Insurance Agent Credentials

The first and one of the most important things that you need to keep in mind when it comes to term life insurance, is that every person who sells life insurance in your state must be licensed properly in the state they are practicing in. Before you decide to do business with a specific no medical term life insurance agent, you need to find out if they have all of the proper licenses and credentials to be selling you insurance. You would probably be surprised if you knew how many insurance agents were out there making sales without obtaining the right credentials or renewing their licenses regularly. Learn more about no medical term life insurance at http://healthfreakmommy.blogspot.com/2007/12/no-medical-term-life-insurance.html.

What many people looking to purchase no medical term life insurance are not aware of is that in order for an insurance salesperson to operate, they must undergo a series of courses to keep their licenses up to date. An insurance agent without a license, or one who does not go through required training and schooling, is not going to be a safe and effective insurance agent to work with. If you end up dealing with a shady insurance agent, you may find yourself with an insurance plan that amounts to nothing when it really matters.

There are also insurance agents that work out of their own homes. While these home based agents may have their licenses and proper credentials, this is another issue worth looking into when it comes to choosing the right no medical term life insurance agent. Be prepared to ask questions of any prospective term life insurance agent, and if they appear not to be genuine in nature, properly licensed, and certified by the state that you are purchasing insurance in, it is time for you to simply move on.

Before doing business with a specific term life insurance agent, you should check with the insurance regulator in your state to see if he or she has ever had a complaint lodged against his or her insurance agency. Checking out the credentials for each and every potential insurance agent is another important step. The following five insurance agency credentials are the most common. If your prospective term life insurance agent does not meet these credentials, or cannot readily prove that they do, it may be best to look elsewhere for your insurance policy. Find out more about term life insurance by visiting http://mysoulfulthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/11/equote.html .

CFP -- Certified Financial Planner

CLU -- Chartered Life Underwriter

ChFC -- Chartered Financial Consultant

CPA -- Certified Public Accountant

PFS -- Personal Financial Specialist

Ensuring that your term life insurance company or agent has the right licenses, credentials and history is all about protecting yourself. It would be terrible to find out that you have been ripped off, or that your insurance policy is not valid because your insurance agent was not properly licensed at the time of your sale. Term life insurance is serious business, and the only way to protect yourself is to make sure that you are dealing with legitimate insurance agencies when you purchase your insurance policies.

Conseco Reports Fourth Quarter and Year-end Results

Conseco, Inc. (NYSE: CNO) today reported results for the fourth quarter and year-end 2008. "We are pleased to report our final results for the fourth quarter 2008 today, along with the successful renegotiation of our credit facility with our lenders," Conseco CEO Jim Prieur said. "Renegotiating our debt gives us greater financial flexibility during times of market volatility, as we focus on the continued growth of our core insurance businesses. Our businesses produced significant operating earnings, sales, and cash flow in the fourth quarter. We will file our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008 with the SEC later today, with an unqualified opinion from our auditors..."

Some Simple Steps To Make Money With Ads

If you want to make money from home there are some things that you need to realize. For one, you can’t just sit back at the computer and expect to make money with ads. By that I mean you can’t post ads on the web and sit back expecting to make millions. If you start an online business because you want to make money without leaving home then creating an online business is for you. This is the most sure fire way to make money from home. Although you can’t sit back and expect ads to collect you money, you can do some trafficking and let your ads generate a cash flow for you.

When making money from home it is essential to realize you will have to work hard. That goes for wanting to make money without leaving home and for wanting to make money online. Technically they both go hand in hand with one another. However you can eventually make money with ads if you have a web site with ads on them. Then advertisers will pay you on pay per click ads or even just to host their banners on your website.

So how is posting ads on a web page going to make you money from home? Well that’s very simple, the web site is going to be yours. That means that you first create an online business or an online website and then you attract people to it. Attracting people to your page is called trafficking. Once you start getting a good amount of trafficking on a daily basis, companies will want to be sponsored on your page.

The company may interest you in their affiliate program which means you would work for them/with them. The more people who visit your page and buy their product the more money you make. The company may instead with to do pay per click (ppc.) This means every time someone clicks their banner on your page you earn money.

Other Options:

Writing: Writing articles, blogs, papers and anything else can put some money in your pocket. When you first start out you will want to have a good amount of show pieces for all of the future clients that you apply to. It is also an intelligent idea to have a different genre of topics. You don’t want clients to think you can only write about one thing. Once you have a decent amount of experience, you can open your own web page. Once you open your own page, say hello to making money with ads and words.

Medical Transcript: Typing medical records via a recorder sounds pretty simple but makes good money. It is honestly as simple as listening and typing and there you have it. The only thing that can be a little difficult is trying to understand what one is saying. They usually talk pretty fast so speed typing is a plus. All this is done online and in the comfort of your own home.

A Few Tips On How to Make Extra Money

For most people, a way to make extra money is the highlight of one’s day. All around the world people are wondering and searching for legitimate ways to make an extra income. They want to know how to make money now and how to do it fast. Some individuals are just looking for ways to make money quick online or from home. Well there are hundreds of ways to make extra money online, at home, and in the streets; and no I don’t mean selling drugs or selling one’s self. There are legitimate ways to go about this.

Ways to Make Extra Money:

For starters you can sell things on EBAY, Amazon or Craigslist.com to make some extra money. You can sell your old movies, DVDs, tapes, clothes, furniture, computers, books, sheets, statues, figures, dolls, collectables, even your old comics or magazines. It is amazing what people are looking for at all times. Selling your stuff on one of these websites is a great way to make money quick online. You can also sell old game systems like Nintendo 64, Pokémon cards, and even baseball cards.

Figuring out how to make money now can be harder if you don’t have any items to sell. So if that’s the case, try working to make extra money.

If you decide to start your own business you can make an extra income. The work will be hard, but you can make however much you desire. If you want to work hard and make a big income you can, or you can slack and make a smaller income. You can decide to create your own products and then sell them online. You can even sell your services if there’s something you’re really good at like me. I offer my writing services to different individuals aka clients.

E-Books:

If your still thinking, “how to make money now” then try writing an E-Book. You can write about whatever you know or whatever you have interest and skills in. Let’s say you are great with computers, you can write an E-Book on how to make a computer run faster, or how to clean it off for viruses. You can write about whatever it is you know! Another thing you can do is write about your experiences. If you’re like me and have had a life changing experience, write about it and publish it on line. Once you get your E-Book on the net you can rack in the dough. You choose how much you sell if for, then get traffic to your book by finding the right audience age and promoting it. It’s as simple as one, two, write!

Work:

The next thing is to do some work online for money or work with an affiliate program. When you work with an affiliate program you make money for each item you sell or how much business you get the company. If the job doesn’t ask for a start up fee or any other fee, it’s usually legit.

This is a great way on how to make money now online or at home.

Wondering How to Make Money on the Internet?

If you are wondering how to make money on the Internet then you are like at least half of the world’s population. For every person that hates the Internet and technology there are about 7 if not more that love it. The Internet provides us with information, resources, music, games, fun, stories, knowledge, power, and even money. Money can be made all over the Internet in a hundred different ways. You can do a million different things to make money on the web.

One thing that you can do which can give you a nice income instead of writing online or trying to do data entry is to put people together. By that I mean, connect individuals. How many times have you seen companies or individuals looking to hire teams of people or employees to work for them? They would rather not waste their time trying to find those individuals themselves. Then they have to interview and go through hundreds of options. Well, what if you could give them the team of 10 people their looking for. You recruit the individuals based on what the client is looking for, and then you give the team to the client for a fee.

Not only are you making good money but you can do that in just a few minutes or hours. It won’t take you long to track down individuals that are looking for work and connect them to clients looking for workers. You can make more in one hour then you would all day writing articles or doing data entry. Connecting individuals is a great way to make money on the web. It is also a great way to make money online fast and easy, without the hassle of getting migraines from working so much.

Think of the hundreds of companies looking for a CEO or looking for a new marketing rep. You can be the one to connect them to the man or woman of their dreams in just a short amount of time. Companies will charge you a very nice fee for your troubles because it saves them money, man power and time trying to find someone themselves. When you work for a client writing articles or such, you are working long hours for not enough pay. Your fate is in the clients hands, not the other way around.

When connecting individuals to each other, you hold the company or clients fate in your hands. This is a great way to make money online fast no matter how you flip it. It will take some work for you, but if you use online resources it can be simple. Using websites that are full of free lancers and individuals or companies looking for work or employees then your job is fairly simple. You just weed through the best and worse and put them together