Question about 'cheap' insurance

Do companies offering cheap insurance really offer helpful products? For instance my wife's job offers her a 'Spectera' vision plan, which claims to offer all kinds of benefits such as free, or $150 off, glasses and lenses etc. for the whole family for only $20/month. (Of course their doctors have to be in the network) This seems highly suspect to me since I don't see how they could afford to give 2 to 4 people $300-$600 of discounts per year when they are being paid only $240/year. Is something like this worth paying for, or is it basically just a scam?

It all basically works as a hybrid pyramid scheme and game of chance. For every person who uses the insurance, there has to be about seven or eight who do not, otherwise everything falls apart.

...but squeezes profit out along the way, weakening the protection actually offered.

Insurance works under the exact same business premise as gaming.

paid by the companies does not even equal medicare. They pay a percentage of medicare. We cannot afford to stay open if we take all available insurance programs. Insurance companies are finding more and more ways to make profits off of premiums but denying claims or taking a long time to pay or asking for more and more paper work before they will pay a claim. The are forming groups that pay less than they have contracted to pay. Basically, insurance companies are making more and more money while less and less people can afford medical treatment.

The only way around them is a single payer system.

The company is not giving anything, the doctor's are. They are giving a discount to a group of people who are being fed to them as clients, the company is charging you for getting you and everyone else the discount. This is usually not insurance, there may be a group insurance plan which pays some amount to the doctor's for the exams and other procedures that you are enrolled in by being part of the group. These are not always bad deals, they are not always good deals, just have to look at it and see if it will benefit you.

By the way I have run into Spectera and have not heard many complaints from HR people regarding them, which to me means they probably do what they say they will do. Not my endorsement, just what I have heard or actually not heard.

What little info I can find makes the company sound worse for the doctors than the patients. I am finding that apparently it is offered to lower paid federal government workers and Wal-mart takes Spectera so that tells me all I need to know.

This is a discount plan and not insurance. I have found better pricing on eye exams and glasses at Costco and 4-eyes than what's offered by these plans at more expensive shops. There are also plans for dental care. In the past, I have joined the plan, had the work done and quit the plan in 2 months. One time, my dentist told me how much the work would cost and I said I will have to join one of these plans and she said that she would just give me the same pricing without joining.

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