You don’t need a financial guru to tell you to cut back on unnecessary or ancilliary expenses deemed ‘extra’ or ‘nice to have’ during such belt-tightening times, which many are predicting may be a long recession.

How do you know if your health care should be classified as a necessity or luxury? Like everything else in life, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. So don’t believe anyone (especially sales people who come in many guises, shapes and forms) who tries to tell you otherwise. Here are some simple evaluation techniques to help you assess what your health care needs are, now and in the future.

FOR GENERATION Y

When you’re young, single and carefree with no dependants or obligations, start by studying your medical expenses over the past year. Most will find that the expenses spent on health care doesn’t add up to a large amount. Many employers also provide basic health care coverage for employees. This mainly covers clinical visits, medical consultancy and medication. If you’re operating on a shoestring budget, thanks to those pesky car loans and credit card payments, contributing hundreds of dollars every month towards an external insurance health care scheme may be too oncerous at this stage of your life. It may be more prudent to depend on your company’s health benefits.

FOR GENERATION X

When you start your family, with the added obligation of taking care of aged parents, money matters get trickier. Depending on your joint earnings potential, lifestyle, expenditure and dependants in your household, you may be better off combining everyone’s needs via a tailor-made family package. Most of the big name insurance companies have family health care packages with imbedded discounts and flexibilities according to your total needs. This ranges from basic coverage to all-in surgery and full hospitalization coverage. As with all insurance plans, the earlier you start the less it’ll cost. Examples include mother-and-children packages where annual health care life insurance premiums for early mothers and their babies can be surprisngly affordable.

FOR BABY-BOOMERS

You definitely can’t dismiss health care as a luxury in your golden years as this is when you’ll need it the most. Kudos to the government for providing decent, affordable health care at our public hospitals with subsidised medical consultancy and medication costs. At this critical juncture, based on your medical condition and state of your general health, insurance providers do offer basic to more comprehensive health care packages.