25% Of Young Adults Uninsured
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Millennials are confident about financial health but are underinsured.
Nearly one in four millennials lacks health insurance despite the federal law that requires all Americans to get covered, a Princeton Survey Research Associates International survey shows. The survey, commissioned by insuranceQuotes.com, found that 12 percent of over-30 adults lack health insurance while 24 percent of consumers 18 to 29 don't have health insurance.
Millennials are 10 percent more likely to lack health coverage than adults age 30 and over despite paying lower costs, receiving subsidies based on income, and possibly staying on parental health policies until age 26, according to InsuranceQuotes.com.
When they do purchase insurance, millennials most often choose a bare-bones policy. In the survey, 36 percent of the under-30 respondents indicated they have only the minimum of any type of insurance required by law or a lender, while only 23 percent of adults ages 30 to 49 and 21 percent of those 50 to 64 said the same.
One explanation for this absence of insurance may be that 60 percent of those surveyed believe they are somewhat or very prepared for a financial disaster. However, it's surprising how many millennials are going without health insurance, despite the Affordable Care Act's requirement to buy it. This may be because many Gen Y consumers are burdened with student debt that, in some cases, is the size of a mortgage, and many don't think they need health insurance. "If they get sick, they go to urgent care," says Kile Lewis, co-CEO and co-founder of oXYGen Financial, a financial planning firm in Atlanta that caters to customers from generations X and Y.
As active consumers of information, many millennials feel the requirement to purchase health insurance, whether or not they think they need it, is unfair. "They understand they're subsidizing older people and less healthy people through their good health," says Kit Yarrow, a financial psychologist at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.
But millennials should never go without health insurance. One serious accident or illness – or even a visit to the ER – can cause major money problems, according to Sally McCarty, senior research faculty at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. The median cost of a visit to the ER varies from $740 for an upper respiratory infection to $3,437 for a kidney stone, according to study published in 2013 in the peer-reviewed online journal PLOS ONE.