Young and the Reckless?

Three months away from graduation and I'm thinking about my upcoming college life. The school, the environment, dormitories, and oops! what about health insurance? Most younger people don't have health insurance and an article I read discusses the possible reasons for this lack of insurance. In the beginning of the article, it proposed that younger Americans did not have health insurance because they simply felt no need to have it. Typically, young adults are less likely to have health issues than older Americans. But that is definitely not the only reason not many young adults have health insurance. MONEY is kind of a big factor in health insurance. Most young adults don't earn enough money to pay for health insurance, so they go without it. Luckily, they're are less likely to have health issues, but that is not always a guarantee.

In this situation, there is a lack of sufficient funds to have young adults support themselves health wise. Because of their inability to pay for health insurance, insurance companies have had to compensate for this gap in their earnings by raising the costs of premiums. I could imagine the stress on the pockets of the people who pay those high premiums. More money put into health insurance costs is less money in other areas and businesses that need their economy stimulated.

I suppose that if health insurance companies lowered their prices to an affordable price that everybody, including low-income young adults, can afford then more of them would purchase it. Would that cover every aspect of why young adults usually don't have health insurance? No, most likely not. Perhaps a combination of higher wages and lower premiums would hike up number of young adults who purchase health insurance.

Definitions:
*compensate-to recompense for something, to counterbalance
*premiums-payment for insurance

Article: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/driving-the-young-from-the-insurance-pool/