Archived: Sep 09, 2007

> Editorial

Complainers beware: The uninsured shall get no sympathy from me

Be smart with your necessities

By Nicole Provencher

…that article made those people look very hypocritical and really immature. Like totally.

There’s always that one person that just complains all the time. He may be one of your best friends, but you probably avoid hanging out with them on a regular basis so you won’t have to listen to them whine.

Well, now you get to listen because I’m about to complain about the complainers – namely, those young adults who don’t take care of themselves or their finances.

In a recent article in a local publication, many young adults were featured as people without insurance. The article meant well – I think the goal was to show that just because they didn’t have insurance, it’s not because they didn’t want it; it’s simply too expensive for them.

I wholeheartedly agree that it’s far too expensive and insurance companies have some completely bogus rules. The insurance I’m under through my mom’s employer won’t cover me come January because I’ll be 23 by then. It apparently doesn’t matter that I’ll still be in school – they stick to their lame restrictions.

This has made me begin to look into getting insurance until I get a job out of college, hopefully with benefits. Am I whining about it in a newspaper editorial? OK, maybe a little, but that article made those people look very hypocritical and really immature. Like totally.

One guy dropped his cigarette in a stairwell but didn’t want to try to retrieve it because he couldn’t afford insurance. Maybe he could afford it if he dropped the habit.

Another guy’s father is a doctor but he can’t afford insurance. Yet, he can join a gym to keep himself healthy. I’m pretty sure a gym membership fee is the same price as insurance per month.

One girl claimed to have perfect health (except when she was sick for two weeks) because she takes 14 vitamins a day. Are you kidding? You can afford 14 different vitamins, but not insurance?

“I work too hard for my money to just give it away and never see it again.” Wow, that’s a positive attitude. Seriously, how do these self-absorbed, immature people still function on a daily basis? I’m baffled.

Insurance isn’t just to keep up your health. There are these things called accidents, where you surprisingly need medical attention when you didn’t expect it. I know it’s hard to grasp, but perhaps you should consider having insurance for these unexpected moments and not just to keep your teeth clean, because I would hope you can handle that on your own.

It seems like a lot of young people are just looking for the easy route – ways to get around doing the right thing. This is where immature decisions are made when it would be much easier to take the time to do things right. I guess that’s way too easy.

All in all, this article more showed how irresponsible today’s youth is – it didn’t make me feel bad for the “poor and uninsured.” They are just immature and don’t know how to spend their money wisely. That’s not my problem.

The solution is to budget and spend accordingly. If you can’t set aside $200 a month for insurance, you probably shouldn’t be living on your own with car payments and expensive habits like smoking a pack a day and drinking at the bars every night. This is, of course, just a suggestion.

If these people expect anyone to feel bad for their stupidity, they are delusional. With all the whining, I have to wonder if they actually expect other people to pay for them. I hope they’re not that delusional.

Grow up people! Pull your heads out of your butts. You’re in college – you should start learning how to manage your money by now. If you need help, you can come to me and I’ll make fun of you.

> Comments

EM on Sep 14, 2007 at 01:19 PM:

This article was pointed out to me by a friend who has no health insurance, is allergic to bees, and was stung by a bee the other day and contracted an infection from it. She is, fortunately, a student here, and was able to go to Norris the next day, but she had a rough afternoon and night, for sure.

~$300 (with roommates)-$700 (living alone) - Rent (including utilities) ~$250 - car/insurance/gas (which you need to drive yourself to the doctor, right?) ~$30-60 - phone (which you have, obviously, in case of emergency) ~$45 - internet (because of those damn D2L sites) ~$200 - food (which you need to survive) ~$1000-tuition (a full time undergrad tuition bill is nearly $4000/semester now). ~$200 - INSURANCE (as you wrote "set aside $200 a month for insurance" That doesn't even make any sense because you can get temp coverage for like $60 a month).

Total: $2,025 - $2,555. Full time classes: 12 credit hours per semester. Job (because lots of people's parents don't give them money or cars or gas cards or rent or even tuition!): 30 or so hours a week/11 bucks an hour (around highest pay for an LTE or student worker at UWM - I'm assuming one works part-time during school because if one worked full time, insurance wouldn't be an issue).

Total income/month: $1320. But WAIT! Taxes! I guess you'll have to take home a mere $1,056.

So, let's review: Monthly expenditures: $2,025 - $2,555. Monthly income: $1,056.

So, it appears that saving up for insurance while in college is ONLY DOABLE if you have a sugar daddy (or mama) or slang dope.

Jack on Sep 15, 2007 at 10:48 AM:

While I realize the Post is not a professional publication, seeing the words "Like totally" in a supposedly serious editorial is enough to make me want to gag...with a spoon.

Having said that, let me tell you something else. I had a relatively high paying job for almost 20 years, and never went to college. Mass layoffs hit in February, and I was suddenly without a job. A few months earlier I dwindled my savings down to pay off my car two years early and wipe out the rest of my debt.

Unemployment checks barely cut it. I ended up selling my car two months ago just so I could pay rent. I had been paying $90/month for health insurance when I had a job. I had no choice but to abandon health insurance when I had no income. (yes, unemployment counts as income, and it has since run out.)

But being relatively healthy and not a hypochondriac that goes to the doctor at the first sign of a runny nose, I figured I'd be ok. A few months passed and was forced to go to the ER due to extreme pain. As soon as I told them I had no insurance, they did every test possible on me, whether it was relevant or not. I was diagnosed with "X" in "Y" part of my body, and was immediately given morphine for the pain even though I declined it. They also gave me something else which I told them I wasn't able to pay for and didn't need or want.

Fast forward to now. That one hour ER visit is costing me over $3500, and I have no way to pay. I have no family to mooch off of, and I would never ask friends to contribute financially to me.

And before you say some tripe like "Just send them $1 a month dude" - yeah, that only works for a few months until they send your account to a collection agency.

Do I want anyone's sympathy? Absolutely not, and especially not from you. However, you just wait until a similar situation happens to you, and you'll be the one crying foul about how health care sucks in this country and how you can't understand why countries like Canada and Russia have free health care.

Like totally. Fer sure.