by L.B. Woodgate

Created on: April 12, 2010   Last Updated: April 13, 2010

With a degree in hand and a sense of independence, graduating college students are now  prepared to begin their lives in the job market, hopefully with most considerations already figured out.  If you’re one of the fortunate ones, you already have a job lined up and even have a place to live apart from mom and dad.  As a single person there are fewer obligations to contend with.  There is one area that needs to be addressed, though many graduates may feel it is not worth their consideration at this time - health insurance coverage. 

“What, me?” you may ask.  “I’m young and healthy and insurance coverage is the least of my worries.” With the prospect that you have a looming student loan to pay off, the added expense of health care coverage seems more a hindrance than a necessity. This perspective carries a lot of weight and becomes irrelevant if you do obtain a job with an employer that provides health care coverage. But for those less fortunate who find themselves still in the hunt for a job during these tight economic times, here’s what’s available to you in reasonable health insurance coverage.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.  By 2014 you will be faced with the need to provide your own health care coverage or the federal government will penalize you with a tax penalty close to what you would nominally pay for coverage. Though this seems unfair, it does motivate you to get coverage that you will need some day and by creating a larger pool of insured policy holders from healthy young adults who don’t currently have it, overall rates will go down. If you remain unemployed by 2014 and are still not covered, you have three options.

1. Remain uninsured and incur the tax penalty that when fully phased in by 2016 can take up to 2.5% out of your wages, with a maximum of $2085.

2. Move back in with the parents and have them put you back on their insurance.  The new law will now allow dependent children to be covered until they turn 26.  This assumes however that you remain unemployed until then and that mom and dad are willing to give you back your old room they’ve already turned into their private gym.

3. Buy your own insurance.  As a young healthy adult your rates are not going to be as a high as someone who is older with health issues. Though the new reform prevents insurance

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