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Adventures in the real world: health insurance
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Not to tempt fate or anything, but let’s say I’m riding my bike and get run over by a speeding bus. I break my arms and legs and, say, crack a few ribs, but other than that, I’m fine because I’m very resilient. The lovely people at the hospital make me all better, and in a few months I’m as good as new. Then I get the bill in the mail and realize the bus should probably have gone ahead and finished things off when it had the chance, since I apparently owe thousands of dollars more than I actually possess. And I don’t have health insurance. I spend the rest of my life drowning in debt, and I am very sad.
Now consider this: I ride my bike downtown to work and back every day and have done so for months without incident. I pay a monthly premium for short-term health insurance that only covers huge, expensive accidents, and had I not been doing so for the past 10 months, I would not only still be alive and debt-free, but I would have a bunch of extra money that I could use to buy something I really need, like a massage chair or a really fancy Roomba.
This is the annoying cost-benefit dilemma of health insurance.
What you need to do, twenty-somethings, is figure out a way to stay on your parents’ plan for as long as possible. Do this however you can, even if they don’t realize it and angrily find out later you’ve been putting various teeth-cleanings and eye-examinings on their tab. Alternatively, find a job with benefits (and good luck to you!). If neither of these is an option, then you must always wear a helmet, floss your teeth regularly, and never sleep in your contacts, because your next medical appointment of any kind won’t be any time soon.
I do have health insurance. It’s really annoying to pay a chunk of money for it every month, and so far I haven’t used it at all. But the above bus scenario scares me enough that I never want to find myself without insurance when I get mauled by a bear or crushed by an anvil or whatever. One of my friends, who shall be known as Wanda, got hit by a car while riding her bike. Did you know that it costs $30,000 to replace your femur? It’s true! Wanda now has a metal rod in her upper thigh. But she had insurance, thank goodness, and now she is well enough to dance up a storm at the Good Foot’s soul night, which we did last Friday. And she will not drown in debt for the rest of her life, or at least if she does, it will be from vet school and not from a broken femur.
I found a plan with Pacific Source that’s actually pretty cheap. I pay $54/month for a $500 deductible and an 80%/20% deal after that. Which, I hear, is not that bad at all. Before that I had something with Assurant Health. That also seemed fine. Honestly, I don’t know that much about this whole insurance thing, but it seems wise to have some kind of coverage. And I’m all for things that are wise. Like ceasing to write when you have nothing left to say.
Happy 4th of July if you are American (and even if you’re not, I still hope it’s happy),
Your Portland Twenty-something
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