How to Evaluate and Compare health insurance plans ?

First of all don't make the mistake of choosing a Health Insurance plan that is going to "cover" most of your family's day to day needs while ignoring what your actual bottom line cost for care is and ignoring how well you might or might not be covered in a worst case scenario. You need to figure not only what the health insurance benefits are that you think you will use versus the monthly cost but you also need to figure out what your TOTAL ANNUAL HEALTH CARE COSTS were last year or in a typical year.
Then you need to do the same for a worst case scenario year (where everyone gets very sick or there is a terrible accident and you want to go to whomever you want to outside the area to be treated) you're your health insurance.

The best way to do this is to first go over your last year's health insurance expenses. Total up the number of doctors visits and prescription co-pays if any. Add to that the expenses you paid out of pocket that counted towards a deductible or coinsurance. Add to that anything that was not covered. Add. to this your annual premiums.
The grand total is your true cost health insurance care for the year. To figure out what your monthly cost is, divide the annual cost by 12. This figure is what your health insurance care really costs you per month.

Example: Let's say a family of four one year pays $650 per month for their health insurance. One person in the family needed surgery and therapy from a specialist out of the network. Besides the California health insurance premiums, this year the family paid out $150 in doctors visit and prescription drug co-pays; $400 in additional deductibles and co-pays for the emergency room and other hospital service deductibles; $300 in chiropractic services that wasn't covered by their California Health Insurance and $500 for out of network services.
Their total annual cost for health insurance is $9150. Their average monthly cost is $762.

The same family was offered an opportunity to obtain a health insurance plan that would have enabled them to go to any doctor anywhere in the country without any additional out of pocket costs and included unlimited chiropractic care but the health insurance plan had no co-pays for doctors visits or prescriptions. The health insurance plan had a $250 deductible and a 50% coinsurance on the next $2500. All of these costs went towards a maximum of $3000 for the family of deductibles and co-insurance or $1500 for just one person- of out of pocket costs. After that the health insurance plan covered 100% of eligible expenses.

Lets see what the same family's health insurance care cost would have been had they chosen this option.

The monthly cost for the health insurance was $340 per month. The family figures that if they had had to pay for the covered expenses above the total would have come to $700 for doctors' visits and prescriptions; $3000 for services received in the hospital and the total for out of network services would have come to $2500. So if the family had chosen this California health insurance plan, out of the $6500 in medical expenses the family had that year, $5000 worth were generated by one family member so the family would have been responsible for that person's deductible and co-insurance totaling $1500.
The balance of the remaining health insurance expenses of $1000 would have been covered as follows. $500 of this would have gone towards two more deductibles and the balance of $500 would have been covered 50% . So the family, in addition to the first $1500 would have been responsible for $750 more in out of pocket costs that year. Therefore, in addition to the annual cost of the health insurance ($340 x 12) or $4080 we must add $2250 in out of pocket expenses.
The total annual cost comes to $6330 and the monthly cost broken down comes to $527 per month for plan had they chosen this plan or a savings of $235 per month or $2820 for the year.

For a worst case scenario, the way to project what your true cost for health insurance would be is to find out what your maximum out of pocket responsibility would be if you needed or wanted to go to a leading specialist that was outside our area/network for care and add this to your premiums and other out of pocket costs.

Often the out of pocket maximum for out of network expenses can range from $4000 to $8000 or more for many popular plans. However California Health Insurance plans that require as little as $1500 or less for a family out of pocket are available. If your plan's family out of pocket maximum is $6000 you need to figure that your cost for health care in a worst case scenario could cost you another $500 per month on top of your monthly premiums and in network co-pays!
If you compare this to a health insurance plan that not only saves you hundreds of dollars per month but also has a lower out of pocket maximum, the end result is better protection for you in addition to getting all of your needs paid for.
This is why more and more people are coming to realize that although some California health hnsurance plans don't seem to cover the things that they THINK they would like them to cover (in the way other plans do), in the end, these things are not only covered, but the family saves more than they ever dreamed possible.
So, it pays to be informed when comparing your health insurance plans.