Health insurance in America is a gamble
The terrifying prospect of losing your coverage—I can't wait till I'm old enough for Medicare.
Last month, I was sent into a panic because we found ourselves suddenly faced with the prospect of losing our health insurance. Oh, there was a job loss involved in there too with this unexpected news of corporate restructuring, [UPDATE: crises averted for now, sorta] but it was the health insurance scare that sent me down a spiral.
If you had told me when I was younger that I’d one day be counting down the years until I qualified for Medicare, I would have laughed and dismissed it with a wave of my hand. But here we are in 2024 and I’m doing this very thing—counting down the years till I can sign up for Medicare.
I literally cannot wait to get off the hamster wheel of this American health insurance system with its private insurance plans and finally reap the benefits from the government program I’ve been paying into with 30 years worth of taxes.
Granted, I still have a ways to go. I have a little over a decade till I hit 65,1 but despite the ever-looming threats of Republican cuts to social security and Medicare just when Gen X is getting ready to age into these government programs, I’m basically salivating for the day I’m old enough to qualify. Yes, please! Sign me up!
Which is saying a lot, considering I’m not exactly jumping for joy at the fact that I’m a mere stone’s throw away from becoming a senior citizen.
I know what you’re thinking. I can already hear the knowing chuckles from those of you who may already be on Medicare. Maybe the system isn’t a panacea of great, free healthcare like I’m willing it to be. At the risk of breaking my own clueless bubble, I only just learned that Medicare is, in fact, a very complicated, multi-faceted system of parts that requires a monthly premium for certain preventative services (hello, what?! There’s a “Part B” and you have to pay for it?). But look, it has to be better than this employer-sponsored system that we’re currently too entrenched in to ever hope for a reform in this country, right? Right??