Another thing to know - it's fairly inexpensive if you're young and in decent health.
For the vast majority of you, worrying about health insurance is more silly than worrying about the cost of a car.
Individual insurance also means that the first major health issue you have can drastically increase your future premiums.
a friend of mine was 22, she tried to buy individual health insurance with a blank medical history and discovered that no insurer offered polices for her gender and age group in her geographic region (VA)
no one would sell her individual insurance.
as a 26 year old male with a similarly blank medical history in a different geographic region (MD), I recently had exactly the same thing happen. no one would quote me a policy because no one wanted to sell me a policy.
I'm interested in your friend's story. At 23, male, in VA I had absolutely no trouble buying an individual policy. I have some health issues, but nothing major, but I was able to secure a decent policy for just over 100$/month. MD should be even easier (if more expensive), considering there is no medical underwriting in MD.
Worrying about about health insurance is silly? What a moronic attitude. Health care is a reverse lottery and there's practically no top end if you end up with "winning" genetics/car crash/whatever. "Not worrying" about healthcare insurance is irresponsible and wreckless. If you end up needing expensive emergency care the rest of us have to foot that bill because you were so arrogant as to think it couldn't happen to you.
Unbelievable.
I know because I've actually done it. Have you?
I've previously quoted the price I paid out of pocket for a very comprehensive policy and I'm expensive because of age and gender. We've now also heard 2nd hand from a broker.
The same policy costs young people, the ones that we're talking about, a lot less.
That's why I mentioned car costs.
But, you'd have to actually read instead of regurgitating what you've "heard".
You're wrong, for one. Self-insuring in the US is an expensive proposition for anyone regardless of age or medical history. Also this isn't the days of immigrants coming over by the boatload to spend 40 years making widgets in a factory before dying an early death anymore. The US healthcare system's poor (and deserved) reputation has a non-trivial effect on the country's competitiveness. It is dragging the economy down. And this is a part of it. Ignore that at your peril (please).
Anyone? I've done it, while over the age of 50 and male in the SF Bay Area. It wasn't that expensive.
And yes, I went with a full-coverage policy with no deductible and a minimal co-pay. I could have saved a lot of money by going with an HSA.
I've posted the numbers before.
Sure, you've read some horror stories. Google "Gell-Mann effect".