8 November 2007 2 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

I don’t have any health insurance right now, and that scares me. I can manage to pay just about every other bill, without working the 9-to-5 grind. But, health care in the U.S. is the stuff nightmares are made of, and insurance is just about the only way to cut through all that red tape. The cost of that same insurance, though, is just as bad, and there’s no way to be frugal about it.

I do have options for getting it: I can pay high prices for an individual plan with an astronomical deductible. I can marry my boyfriend whose job gives him a cushy benefits package. I can sign up for a health savings account and go for that high deductible plan. I can sign up with a professional association and try to get in on a group rate. And sooner or later, I’ll probably do one of those things.

I’m aware of the risk I’m taking. I’m not too worried about illness — I’m young and in relatively good shape. But just as many insurance dollars go to dealing with injury as illness. And the fact that, if I want to go get the medication to keep a bad cold from turning into something else, I have to pay an arm and a leg is starting to get old.

Health insurance is one of the biggest crises facing young people today. When a person walks out of college and starts the job hunt, the odds of their first job offering decent health care is very low. 47 million Americans are currently without any sort of health insurance, according to the Census Bureau, and that figure is rising. That’s not counting the people with really bad insurance — the kind that comes with a deductible in the several thousands, or the kind that offers only emergency coverage.

What’s a girl to do? I don’t have a solution yet. But health insurance is the real danger for all of us who want to run our own businesses, retire early or focus on goals beyond getting ahead in a corporation.  It’s getting worse, too. My parents think that they’ll still be able to rely on Medicare for health coverage after they retire. The odds of it being available to me, though, are minimal, at best. Instead, I’ve got to figure in plenty of years of health insurance, after my earning years are far behind me. Does it feel like we’ve painted ourselves into a corner?