A recent study reports that out of 1,878 people age 19 to 64 polled by telephone, 89% of those who were seeking to buy health insurance in the last 3 years did not do so.
“One in five people were turned down or charged a higher premium for individual insurance because of an existing medical condition. Nearly 60 percent of those who sought individual health insurance did not buy it because they could not afford it.”
The article points out that people with high deductibles or HSA qualified plans are nearly twice as likely to take on credit card debt as those on traditional plans (with copays and low deductibles). We hear it all the time, “I don’t plan on spending that much, so what’s the point of having the insurance if it won’t cover what I need?”
We’ve become too dependent having someone else pay for our health insurance, and we expect it to cover everything – even the small things, like the office visits and prescriptions we think we need whenever we get a sore throat or a runny nose. Out of the large number of people who sought to get health insurance but could not afford it; I wonder how many of them currently own a plasma TV, an Xbox, or an Ipod?
