College Students and Health Insurance: Thrill Seekers, Daredevils and Risk Takers
Unlike most of us, college students are in the seemingly enviable position of wonder whether or not they really do need health insurance coverage. To them, that seems to be reasonable question-after all if you’re young and healthy and consider yourself all but invincible why bother. After all, just about everyone with any access at all to our healthcare system can be provided with relatively basic healthcare services and acute-emergency care here in the United States, irregardless of whether they actually have health benefits or not.
Young adults, twenty-something’s between nineteen and about twenty-nine tend to go without substantive access to needed health care services more often than any other age group. Many young adults can go more than twelve months without any real need for healthcare services. And, even among those who do need healthcare, the probability that the costs of said care will exceed $1000.00 in health related expenses is fairly remote.
So it is not one-hundred percent unreasonable to wonder if young adults need health insurance benefits at all. But their health outlook changes dramatically when one considers the more costly and more extensive brands of healthcare.
The capacity of younger patients to obtain high quality major medical services for their most serious health care need – from extended hospital stays to the physical rehabilitation required for many sports related injuries to organ transplants or long term out-patient medical care, largely depend upon whether or not a potential patient has adequate or better health care insurance coverage than any other factors.
Even simple attacks of appendicitis can easily wind up costing a young adult more than $25,000.00. Considering the rising costs of healthcare, even relatively affluent families are having a certain amount of difficulty arranging for adequate medical services lacking the appropriate or necessary brand of health insurance coverage.
Unfortunately, those who wait until they need the sorts of care above will find it difficult to all but impossible to purchase a health insurance plan that offers coverage for such eventualities. The most immediate health insurance concern facing twenty-somethings is that often trade schools, colleges and universities, internship programs, community-sponsored travel opportunities, sports teams and a growing assortment of other activities require that they carry health insurance prior to admission.
Without health insurance, they can not pass go. Which means, that there should be no questions about it – any young adult with ambitions or a need or desire to advance their education first needs to acquire a meaningful level of health and medical insurance coverage?
There are many brands of health insurance benefit plans available to and generally priced with young adults in mind.
The most popular plans are listed below:
Travel Coverage and or International Policies – College students scheduling overseas travel plans should purchase separate health insurance plans to cover the period over which they will be traveling, because most student health care plans do not offer coverage for expenses incurred while outside the United States. Travel policies are exclusively designed to cover health and medical expenses as well as to deal with the brand of “international complications” foreigners typically incur while obtaining medical treatment from an overseas source.
Student Medical Policies – These are basically privately insured major medical and general health policies designed specifically for health care needs of the average collegian. They tend to be portable and offer coverage to students in any location within the U.S. SMP plans also offer health benefits to graduate students, and are typically available irregardless of a potential plan participant’s health status or age.
School-Sponsored Coverage – School or University Sponsored health policies are typically uninsured managed care programs that provide medical services to students residing within the college or universities locality.
Short Term Medical Policies – Sort-term or Interim gap health insurance plans are generally available to offer coverage from one to twelve months. Such coverage is both relatively inexpensive and easy to obtain in most states.
The overall quality of gap coverage tends to be excellent despite the fact that does not typically offer coverage for pre-existing medical conditions. They provide coverage only within the U.S.
Individual Medical Policies – Individual or Indemnity plan policies are permanent health care programs that students can purchase directly from just about any major insurance carrier. They offer the strongest financial guarantees, most stability and highest quality coverage of any health plans. They often provide international coverage. Of course, that all comes attached to a much higher price tag and coverage plans that will issued for a minimum of twelve months.
Blue Cross of California’s TONIK Health Plans – The TONIK trio of health care plans, The Thrill Seeker, The Calculated Risk Taker and The Part Time Daredevil range from $64.00 to $80.00 per month. Deductibles range from in the area of $1,500.00 for the most expensive of TONIK’s plans to in the area of $5,000.00 for the least expensive of the trio.
TONIK’s two less expensive plans offer coverage for four routine doctor’s visits each year, to which the deductible does not apply, while the most expensive of the three will pay for unlimited physician’s office visits.
