'Young invincibles' struggle to come up with reasons to justify paying for health insurance, finding obstacles and not incentives
When President Obama promised millennials that they could get health insurance for $100 a month or less, he wasn't thinking of Assante, a young New Yorker with two part-time jobs and a high cost of living.
Assante works two part-time jobs as a server and has lived in New York for about five years. One of his jobs offers health insurance but only to full-timers. "But because I am part-time, I don't qualify for it anyway.
What I had to learn the hard way, was Oh, a deductible means I have to spend $2,000 for my insurance to actually start to kicking in and me not having to pay. That's ridiculous. I would be paying another $2,000 on top of $325 a month for me to go see a doctor. For me, financially speaking that's not going to work out."
I had never expected that Obamacare would affect me at all. While I was in school I was on Medicaid, because I made no money. I never went to the doctor, because I never needed to. And when I applied to Medicaid it was super easy. It was all of half an hour. I felt super secure and not worried.
I got cold feet. I don't know why I would sign up for this. I told myself I would think about it, but really I just couldn't justify paying that much money."
A couple of days later, we got a bill for [our plan] and found that not a single doctor in the county that we live in accepted that particular plan."
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