Health Insurance

Image Source: simon_duhamel via FlickR

Part of personal development is figuring out what you want to do and pursuing that path; but the problem with doing what you want is you sometimes make less money or work for a smaller company that doesn’t cover an important aspect of your life – your health. No health insurance is not such a big problem for routine check-ups; it’s a bigger problem for accidents and emergencies. Here are some tips to get by with no health insurance in any situation:

Use it While You Have It

If you are graduating or changing jobs soon, schedule dentist, eye, and general exams before your health insurance runs out. This will keep you up-to-date for roughly a year before you need these examinations again.

Opt For More Affordable Care

Alright, so it’s too late to schedule appointments before your health insurance runs out. You can still get your teeth cleaned and your eyes examined for free or for a fraction of the cost through local professional schools. In some cases, like for pap smears, you can actually get paid to play patient for a student exam. Look for optometry, dentistry, nursing, or medical schools in your area. Many schools are found in large cities, so consider traveling for a broader range of services.

Want to know how to get the best student doctors? Meet them at bars, restaurants, or other social events. I’ve heard from many professors that the students who have the best grades struggle through the lab practicals, and the students who make the best doctors are the ones with decent grades and strong social skills. This is because most of what students learn in professional schools is completely inapplicable to patient care in the real world, and the students with mediocre grades are the ones who spend more time practicing relevant skills.

Learn About Alternatives

There are many ways to get insurance aside from going through your employer, which means that when you don’t have an employer you can still get insurance. Here are some places to look:

• Part-time education - some schools offer affordable insurance for part-time students, so if you’ve been thinking about a degree, maybe now is the time
• Part-time jobs - some companies, like Starbucks, offer insurance to their part-time workers. This could be an option for a freelancer or start-up entrepreneur, since many will want to work part-time anyway as they are building their businesses
• Individual insurance - Paul Pilzer wrote a book a few years ago called The New Health Insurance Solution: How to Get Cheaper, Better Coverage Without a Traditional Employer Plan, which explains how private individual insurance plans can be cheaper than employer plans if you and your family are healthy. Paul is an economist who has served as an adviser for two US presidents and I love his book and him because he advocates for a free market on health insurance plans

Minimize Health Risks By Transferring Liability

Health insurance covers you in accidents when you mess up, so to minimize your risk you can either stop messing up or delegate the tasks you are likely to mess up at. As much as we’d all like to do better, the latter is a better option for most people.

The best example I can give of this is driving a car versus taking public transportation. If you end up in an accident while driving your car and it is your fault, you have to pay for your own hospital bills. If you are taking a bus and the driver gets in an accident that is his fault, the bus company is liable for any injuries you sustain.

Another example is food preparation. If you cook meat at home and get food poisoning from it, you foot the hospital bills, but if you eat out at a restaurant and get sick, you can probably sue the restaurant.

So I’m not advocating for everyone to take public transportation, eat out at restaurants, and sue businesses. But the reason you get health insurance is to mitigate risk; so not having health insurance means you have to take personal responsibility for minimizing your risks, and that means getting creative. Look for ways you can put yourself under someone else’s insurance as much as possible.

If You Must Take a Risk, Make it Life-Threatening

The strategy outlined above doesn’t work if the business makes you sign away your life in the event of an accident on their part; so if you are going to do something that risks your health, make sure there are only two likely outcomes – you come away with no serious injuries or you die. That way you don’t have to pay medical bills if you get injured; you’ll just be dead instead.

A great risk to take when you don’t have health insurance is sky diving. The chance of a serious injury is .06%, and the other outcomes are no injury, minor injury that can be fixed with a first aid kit, or death. So to celebrate your journey into no health insurance land, plan a skydiving trip.

If you have any other tips, please leave a comment!