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You're listening to LifeKit from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mariel.

It is open enrollment season.

That time every year when many of us have an opportunity to enroll in a new health care plan,

whether that's through an employer or on your state's health care exchange.

Now, I think a lot of us put this off until the very last minute because it's so complicated.

There are all these terms that you may or may not understand.

Every health insurance plan has its own wrinkles and caveats.

And it's hard to know exactly how much you'll end up

spending. You know, there's just a lot going on. So we hop scotch. So we double dutch. We jump around

and we stand formed and we look at our personal situation. We look at our options and we figure out

what the best choices are to the best of our knowledge.

That's Cindy George, the senior personal finance editor, a good RX.

So on this episode of Life Kit, we'll do our best to help.

We'll give you some definitions, explain the different types of health care plans,

you know, HMO, PPO, that sort of thing.

We'll talk about tax savings, and then we will help you put it all together

and do the math to compare your options.

This message comes from Wise,

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