It's crazy to think that in 2022, over 20% of Americans are still
uninsured with health insurance. We routinely see that in younger,
healthier people such as teenagers and young adults. The general
attitude usually consists of "there's nothing wrong with me so why
spend the money?" As a guy who works 80 hours a week, I get it.
Health insurance is expensive, complicated, and at times is a major
source of stress. In the grand scheme of life, most healthy people in
the earlier stages of their life will not utilize health insurance like
those of an older population. I will say, as the son of a working class
family who happen to have really good health insurance for most of
my life, you also tend to not totally understand how much you are
indeed using health insurance and I believe that happens because
you're not necessarily paying for it. When talking to some of the
younger kids on my EMS squad, it's amazing to see how many of
them don't even know they have insurance. One kid actually told me
that his mom just hands "hands him a card to give to the staff at the
office" and admitted he thought it was a credit card. Needless to say,
I laughed but was very confused and annoyed after that conversation
otherwise.
For the pros and cons of health insurance, I think its a pretty simple
argument. Having health insurance is like any other insurance. You
have it in the event you need it. Its there for those with no medical
ailments as a "back up" in case anything were to happen to you.
Certainly everyone is different as are their individual needs. Health
insurance for me is really all about specialties. My insurance covers
excellent chiropractic care for a herniated disc. My co-pay is $10.
Without insurance, each visit would cost me almost $200. My
specialty visits to an orthopedic doctor as well as primary care run
$40 and $30 respectively. Without health insurance, my orthopedic
doctor likely wouldn't even take me as a patient. Primary care
doctors would run otherwise $80-$100 per visit. Health insurance as
a whole makes total sense to me. The cons to such are obvious.
While there are programs like charity care or medicaid, there is a
qualifying process to access that. In the event of a medical
emergency and accident, it could very potentially cause financial ruin.
When my father suffered a near fatal heart attack in 2018, I followed
the "explanation of benefits" that they kept sending. My mother & I
stopped counting at $700,000. With her insurance, they ended up
