Thing I Do Right: Have Health Insurance

Sometimes even people who don’t do very many things right do things right. What do you do right? Here’s a thing I do right.
I’m bad with money, hardy har har har, but: I’m not bad at everything. It’s important to give ourselves credit for the things we do right, and one thing I do right is that I have health insurance.

After I graduated from college, my dad paid for coverage for me for nine months. Then my job gave me insurance. Then I quit and paid for COBRA. Then I got another job that gave me insurance. Then I quit and got independent insurance, and that’s what I have now.

My current premium is $132/month, with a $5,000 deductible and a $30 co-pay. This is … fine. It allows me to go to the doctor when I’m sick, but doesn’t let me indulge in the personal cancer-scare-mongering I was so fond of in my youth (I tried that once with this plan, positive that I had ovarian cancer, you know, the symptomless cancer, and it was the one year I met my deductible). My plan doesn’t have mental health coverage, which is a hassle because it means I can only go to therapy when I’m flush and that I have to screen general practitioners based on their willingness to code my “depression” as “fatigue.” One day I’ll be able to afford the good stuff.

The reason I do this good thing for myself while forgoing other good things for myself is because my parents trained me to believe that it was The One Rule That Was Never To Be Broken, and for whatever reason, I chose to believe them. (Other rules that were never to be broken, but were broken: keeping a balance on credit cards, spending money without knowing where your next money was coming from, quitting a job without having a new job, buying plane tickets while unemployed, making life decisions based on a dude, etc.) This one, however, stuck, and I’m glad it did. It reminds me that I am capable of holding things together. Or at least this one thing.

Photo credit: flickr/aslakr

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