Almost every day another business announces that it will no longer offer health insurance coverage or that it is requiring its employees to pay a huge portion of the monthly premiums themselves.

Clearly anyone who is not covered by a group health plan needs to get cheap health insurance online here in Arkansas ? but before you just blindly start checking out health insurance websites it may pay you to take a moment and see what you can do to help lower the cost of your health insurance even further.

First of all, if you are a resident of Arkansas and you have been denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition or if you have been quoted an outrageous price for health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, then you may qualify for a state-sponsored program known a CHIP ? the Comprehensive Health Insurance Pool.

Becoming part of this program has nothing to do with your income level, so if you believe you have been turned down for health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or if you can't find affordable health insurance because of such a condition, it would pay you to take a few minutes and check out their website: http://www.chiparkansas.org.

If you don't qualify for Arkansas' CHIP program there are still several things you can do to help drive down the cost of your health insurance.

Let's start with tobacco. If you smoke or use any tobacco products you are intentionally shortening your life and creating additional health problems for yourself, so you can expect to pay more for your health insurance. The answer: stop smoking and stop using any other tobacco products.

Being overweight is a serious problem and one of the most difficult for many people to solve. Part of your health insurance premium will be based on your Body Mass Index, or BMI, which is a fancy way of saying that overweight people pay more for health insurance. Losing even a little weight can often drop you into a lower BMI rating and that can save you hundreds of dollars per year on your health insurance premiums. Losing even a little weight can help.

Don't participate in extreme sports or drive a fancy and fast sports car. Having a career than is considered dangerous will also increase your monthly health insurance premium.

If you can afford it, see if you can increase your copay. This is the cash you pay each time you visit the doctor's office or receive any medical treatment. If you increase your copay from 25% to 50% you can greatly reduce your monthly health insurance premium. This is an especially good tactic for people who do not see their doctor on a regular basis.

We've saved the biggie for last. Your deductible. The higher your deductible ? in other words, the more you are willing to pay each year for your own medical treatment before you involve your insurance company ? the lower your monthly health insurance premium will be.

Some people purchase health insurance policies with a super-high deductible of $2,000 or even $3,000. These inexpensive policies do not pay for routine medical treatments or doctor's office visits, but are designed to protect a person's assets and home in case of a catastrophic accident or illness with medical bills in the tens or even hundreds of thousand of dollars.

All right. Now you've got a good idea of what your options are when it comes to lowering your monthly health insurance bill, so get online and start comparing policies and prices among the different insurance companies writing health policies in Arkansas.

Remember that no website compares all the different health insurance companies in the state, so if you are truly serious about getting cheap health insurance online in Arkansas then you will need to spend the extra time and make the comparisons on at least 3 different websites.

Good luck ? and good health!