News/Commentary

People in their twenties are the largest group of uninsured people in America, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.

Many of them are forced to choose between health insurance and paying for rent and food.

Other twenty-somethings think they don’t need health insurance—-and that’s why this age group is labeled the “invincibles.” They are too young to really believe something serious could happen to them.

The mystery to us is this: Why don’t health plans offer parents the option of buying health insurance for their kids—-COBRA for your child, so to speak—-until they get a health plan?

Twenty-somethings are low risks for health plans. They do tend to be healthy because they are young.

It would seem like a win-win for everybody. The health plan would not lose a member. The young adult would be covered. The parents would not worry.

This assumes, of course, that a parent has a health plan and can afford to pay the premium. Utilization of health care services among the 20s group tends to be low.

It could work like this.

“Happy Birthday! Here’s your Blue Cross card!”

That might be a great gift if it were possible to buy it.

New York Times

…”“young invincibles” — people in their 20s who shun insurance either because their age makes them feel invulnerable or because expensive policies are out of reach. Young adults are the nation’s largest group of uninsured — there were 13.2 million of them nationally in 2007, or 29 percent, according to the latest figures from the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York.”

…People in this age group who do not think of themselves as invincible but don’t have health insurance manage as well as they can.

The tools they use include”Internet diagnoses, self-medicating and trading prescriptions, of course, come with potentially dangerous side effects. Dr. Barbie Gatton, who has worked in emergency rooms throughout the city (New York City) since 2002, said she often sees young people who have taken the wrong antibiotics borrowed from friends.

“We see people with urinary tract infections taking meds better suited for ear infections or pneumonia — the problem is, they haven’t really treated their illness, and they’re breeding resistance,” she explained. “Or they take pain medicine that masks the symptoms. And this allows the underlying problem to get worse and worse.”

Source: New York Times, February 18, 2009

Citation Source:  Commonwealth Fund, February, 2009