Cheap health insurance has become an issue everywhere. More small businesses are increasingly unable to provide cheap health insurance plans to their employees because of the rising costs.

In the meantime most states are looking to cut the costs of health insurance programs for the elderly and the poor. More affordable forms of health insurance plans are available as some private companies experiment with a new variation of cheap health insurance known as health discount plans.

The current health care system in America is inaccessible to approximately 47 million poor and lower middle class people. In order to address the growing health care insurance crisis in the U.S. that resulted in health care cost growth in the 1970s and 1980s, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) sprung up.

Managed care organizations began screening requested procedures by physicians to pre-authorize what the HMO would or would not cover. However, the number of people who are the riskiest to insure-diabetics, cancer, etc.-continues to rise. Many managed care industry experts say the cost of cheap health insurance is still high because of the existing pool of insured people who use the health care system more than the average amount.