canyonwalker | (Reply)

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There have been 1 or 2 times in my adult life I've gone without health insurance for 2-3 months at a time. I mentioned one above, when I was between college and graduate school. I think I was without insurance then. The other was in the ~2 month gap between graduate school and starting a full-time professional job. School coverage was through August; company coverage didn't start until November or maybe October.

In both cases I worried a little... but only a little. I was in my early 20s and pretty healthy. I was just like, "Well, I better not do anything stupid like try learning to ride a motorcycle without a helmet."

Both periods were long enough ago that there was no health insurance mandate. If there was, I would've bought some. ...Actually, if there were a working market for individual insurance I would've bought some. The problem was, back then, there wasn't. That's the awesome thing the ACA addressed. It's far from perfect but it's still night-and-day better than what existed before.