Millions of Young Adult Risk-Takers Uncovered

As Colorado’s snowboarding season approaches, so does the time of year when Katie Neal’s mom really freaks out.

What bothers her mom, Neal said, is not the speed at which the 26-year-old slashes through powder.

It’s that she does it without health insurance.

Nationwide, about 13.7 million people ages 19 to 29 didn’t have insurance in 2004, making them the largest group of uninsured adults in the country, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health-research foundation.

That is true in Colorado as well, according to the Colorado Health Institute.

Young adults 19 to 29 make up 17 percent of the population but account for 30 percent of those younger than 65 who don’t have health insurance, Commonwealth Fund noted in its report, “Rite of Passage? Why Young Adults Become Uninsured and How New Policies Can Help.”

Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released more recent data showing 8.57 million people ages 18 to 24 — roughly 30 percent of that age group — didn’t have health insurance at some time during 2005.

Health care analysts, insurance companies and politicians have offered explanations ranging from the tendency of 20-somethings to work in lower-wage jobs to their propensity to believe they are indestructible. But no single answer seems to explain the phenomenon.

“We suspect that younger adults work for employers that may be less likely to provide insurance,” said Jeff Bontrager of the Colorado Health Institute. “There is also the possibility that younger adults decide not to pay for coverage because of this healthy/invincible mentality.”

In Neal’s case, neither explanation applies.

Neal, a server at Governor’s Park tavern, knows she’s not invincible.

Neal’s employer does offer insurance. She just can’t afford it.

“I would like to have it,” Neal said.

At about $200 a month, health insurance would eat up about a quarter of Neal’s monthly income.

“I’m working my way out of debt, and having another bill, I just can’t do that,” she said.

Carrie Curtiss, president of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, a nonprofit advocacy group, said she doesn’t buy the excuse that 20-somethings are just reckless.

“I think it’s a misconception to think they are invincible, that they are just a bunch of snowboarders throwing caution to the wind,” she said.

The insurance industry believes that too and is now marketing “hip” health insurance to this target group.

Within 24 hours of its Web site debut last month, Rocky Mountain HMO’s SOLO plan had gotten 14 applications for coverage, said Jim Swayze, vice president of the nonprofit insurer.

Rocky Mountain HMO, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna and Kaiser Permanente all offer individual policies aimed at people ages 20 to 29.

“They are a healthy market segment,” said Janice Pramik, Anthem’s director of sales for individual and small-group markets.

Of all the 20-something-targeted insurance packages, none is flashier than Anthem’s “Tonik.”

Like Rocky Mountain’s SOLO, Tonik is sold online. Pramik says it takes just 15 minutes to sign up.

“That market segment tends to procrastinate,” Pramik said. “When you can’t give them immediate gratification, it puts them off.”

Both Anthem and Rocky Mountain offer a variety of plans _ starting with a bare-bones catastrophic coverage with $10,000 deductibles for just $44.78 a month for men through Rocky Mountain. Women are charged a little more.

Anthem asks about health history but doesn’t require a physical.

“We hope people don’t lie,” Pramik said.

Still, as with any individual policy, the company can reject anyone with health problems.

“That’s a big concern for us,” Curtiss said. “The healthiest of young adults will get insurance; the rest will be left out.”

Those who do qualify will get only generic medications — and neither covers pregnancy.

“Maternity is one of the things that increases the costs of health care premiums,” Pramik said. “When we did research, they said they’d rather have lower premiums.”

For common ailments, generic drugs work. But Penny Baldwin, an independent insurance agent, worries about that one-in-a-million person diagnosed with cancer or multiple sclerosis or some other horrific condition.

“There are a lot of conditions that can be treated very, very well — but not with generic drugs,” she said.

Across the country and in Colorado, lawmakers are trying to do something about uninsured young adults.

In two years as a state senator, Longmont Democrat Brandon Shaffer has sponsored about 50 bills.

One of those bills, signed into law in 2005, requires insurance companies to allow parents to buy coverage for college-age kids up to age 25, even if those kids are not full-time students.

“The intent was to cover the scenario where a 20-something was working full time and is a part-time student or living at home to make ends meet,” he said.

Since the bill passed, he’s heard from dozens of parents wanting to know how to get a son or daughter covered, he said.

“I’ve heard these horror stories from people who say, ‘My son has two jobs; he’s working his way through CU'” and got into a car wreck.

Federal law forbids hospitals from turning away patients in emergency situations, regardless of whether they can pay.

But the cost of such care — from a few hundred dollars for a relatively minor emergency to tens of thousands of dollars for a serious car accident — can throw young adults into debt for years.

Neal saw that happen to a co-worker who broke her wrist snowboarding. That woman qualified for state aid that helped with her hospital bill. But Neal worries she could easily wind up in that kind of financial jam.

“I should try to get coverage before snowboarding season starts again,” she said.

Topics Colorado