There’s lots of talk about insurance for the elderly and for children, but not much about insurance for middle-aged and “young” healthy adults. So here’s my story.

I’m 32 and am of a healthy weight, I don’t smoke, and I don’t have any major health issues. There aren’t any major diseases that run in my family. I do have psychiatric problems which require me to take prescription medication. If I buy these drugs over-the-counter in the USA, I pay ~$9/day. If I mail-order them from Canada, I pay a third of that ~$3/day. I’ve never been hospitalized. And I’ve always bought them and paid for them out of pocket so that I don’t end up hospitalized.

I’m a full-time student at night school, but I’m not in a degree program, so I don’t fall into a group that gets health insurance that way. I’m also self-employed. So I’m mostly living on loans.

I recently decided to try and buy health insurance. The highest deductible was $4000/year. And the lowest premium was something like $70/month. Ouch, considering that I’d still be paying for most things out of pocket and I don’t have much positive income. I signed up. This was all via the internet, and the signing up process was a joke. “List all of your pre-existing conditions.” Fill out blanks for when you’ve ever seen a doctor, etc. I don’t remember most of that. Can’t they just pull it up? And won’t they anyway when they want to deny you benefits? Finding out what was actually covered was also annoying. They were very concerned with exotic procedures that I don’t need, or things like false limbs, or pregnancy.

Several days after signing up, I got a letter in the mail saying they’d looked at my application, and presumably because of my medication, raised my premium to $277/month.  I seem to get maybe 10% off at the local pharmacy, which isn’t worth it. When I went to their “approved” location for a blood test, they paid for $300 of it, leaving me paying for $75. Seems good, except when I was paying out of pocket, I seem to recall it costing $200, not $400.

I’m not sure how useful insurance is for me, but I’m not getting younger, and I could get hit by a truck, so I figure I’d better keep it.

I just moved away from San Francisco, and I couldn’t tell you where a local Urgent Care Center or a clinic is. My insurance company hasn’t sent me a 1-800 number to call and talk to nurses 24/7. Hospitals seem to be closing left and right (why are they run for profit? what are you going to cut other than patient care?). Americans are more likely to make poor lifestyle choices, which I get to pay for.

I want to know what will be done to help students and self-employed people to be able to have access to reasonable and good insurance. I want to know that the money I pay for prescription drugs isn’t going towards a TV campaign (it is) instead of R&D;. I want insurance companies to have clearer information upfront, and I want them to be less mercenary. I would be wary of forcing people to buy insurance, because I don’t trust insurance companies to not turn around and dump them, or to decrease quality of care.

Bonus! My dental insurance story!

I needed some dental work done, so went to a dentist. “Is there a cash discount?” “Yes, 5%.” Now given that they spend something like 20-30% on insurance, that seems extremely low. So I went looking online. I found a “dental discount card”. Suddenly all my prices dropped by 50%. What? (This seems to be the case with eyeglasses too.)