Health coverage gap in Neb.

LINCOLN — Colby Woodson battles the flu with liquids, and he fights the occasional sinus infection by trying to ignore it.

The 23-year-old Lincoln resident isn't trying to prove his manhood. He's trying to make it through another year without health insurance, a risky path taken by Woodson and nearly 78,000 other Nebraska young adults, according to a report released Wednesday by the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Nearly 20 percent of Nebraskans ages 18 to 34 don't have health insurance, according to the report from UNO's Center for Public Affairs Research.

That choice — often a financial decision made by young adults juggling rent, car payments and other expenses, experts say — leaves many students, part-time workers and new employees teetering atop a health high wire with no safety net.

“God knows what I would do if something bad happened,” says Woodson, who says he hasn't had insurance and hasn't visited a doctor in three years. “I really have no idea.”

Overall, about 190,000 Nebraskans — roughly 11 percent of the state's population — were without health insurance, according to the report, which analyzed 2008 Census data. That estimate probably has grown since then.

According to the report, those more likely to lack health insurance include:

Ÿ Poor residents. Nearly 28 percent of Nebraskans below the poverty line don't have coverage.

Ÿ Racial and ethnic minorities. About 28 percent of the state's Hispanics and 22 percent of blacks lack coverage, compared with 8 percent of whites.

Ÿ Younger adults, particularly those who didn't finish college.

“When you are young and single, health care is clearly not high on your priority list,” says David Drozd, research coordinator for UNO's Center for Public Affairs Research. “You see it as something to forgo to avoid that extra cost.”

A healthy young adult who can't get insurance through an employer can expect to pay about $100 a month for a middle-of-the-road individual plan — a monthly cost that skyrockets if the adult smokes, suffers from a pre-existing health condition or is pregnant, according to industry estimates.

That $100-per-month plan tends to cover some but not all of a major medical procedure, said Mark Lisko, past president of the Independent Insurance Agents of Nebraska.

For example, a person who has an appendectomy can expect to pay about $3,500 of the estimated $10,000 cost, Lisko said. It's why he advises his younger clients to put money into a tax-deductible health savings account, “just in case something happens,” he said.

Woodson, on the other hand, would be on the hook for all $10,000 of the procedure, a bill that could lead to years of debt.

He looked into buying individual health insurance when he worked at a local Boston Market but says he was “a little incensed” at the monthly cost.

He has a friend with no insurance who damaged his wrist and still hasn't fully paid an orthopedic surgeon's bill.

“He doesn't have any money to pay,” Woodson said. “Basically, I've just been lucky.”

Contact the writer:

444-1064, matthew.hansen@owh.com

« Health

Share