I’m talking about health insurance. If you’re lucky enough to be offered insurance at work, you can simply enroll in your company’s plan. But like many young adults, I don’t get insurance through my job — I’m a freelance writer. When I bought my own health insurance plan over a year ago, I didn’t know what I needed to buy or how much I had to pay. I just picked a plan that sounded good and hoped for the best.

Since healthcare reform passed earlier this year, there are more health insurance options for young adults and new sources for health insurance information. So there’s no excuse not to get covered.

Why you need insurance, even if you’re young and healthy

Young adults are less likely to be uninsured than any other age group because we’re less likely to work in jobs that offer health insurance, according to a 2009 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation report on the uninsured. We’re also likely to be in school or have low incomes, which can make finding affordable health insurance difficult.

Considering that medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcies, according to a 2009 New England Journal of Medicine study, health insurance is one of our most important financial protections. Even if you’re healthy, an unexpected injury like a broken leg could leave you with thousands of dollars of debt if you don’t have insurance.

New options for young adults under 26

If you’re under 26 and don’t get health insurance at work, a recently enacted provision of healthcare reform lets you stay insured under a parent’s plan, even if you don’t live with your parents or you’re married. Latching onto a parent’s plan may be your most affordable option – your parent’s premium may increase slightly, but the increase will likely be less than you would pay for your own plan. For more details about the new dependent health insurance provision, visit GettingCovered.org.

Buying insurance on your own

When I bought my own health insurance plan from the individual market, I didn’t know what kind of insurance plan I needed, how much I should pay for insurance or how to compare plans. So I asked Keith Mendonsa, a consumer specialist at the health insurance comparison website eHealthInsurance, for some pointers on shopping for health insurance.

First, determine what you need health insurance for, Keith said. Do you use prescription drugs? Visit the doctor frequently? If you’re a woman, do you need health insurance to cover medical care for a pregnancy? Do you want to visit a particular doctor?

Understanding your health care needs will come in handy when you search for insurance plans. If you plan to get pregnant, you’ll want to look for a plan that covers maternity care (not all insurance plans do). Have your heart set on getting check-ups from your favorite doctor? You should pick a plan from an insurance network your doctor belongs to – otherwise, your visits may not be covered.

Comparing plans

To search for an insurance plan, you can use a website like eHealthInsurance or talk to an insurance broker. But comparing plans for price can be tricky — you’ll need to consider premiums, deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance and out-of-pocket maximums to figure out how much you’ll pay.

I told Keith I was unhappy that my insurer raised my monthly premiums by about 25 percent earlier this year. I found a similar plan with a lower premium and asked Keith if it would be a good option for me. Keith explained that the plan with a lower premium had a higher out-of-pocket maximum, so while I would initially spend less on premiums, I could end up paying more in the long run if I get sick.

Although it’s tempting to pick the plan with the lowest premium, ask yourself how much you could afford to pay if you actually got sick or injured – if it’s less than the plan’s out-of-pocket maximum, you may be better off with a plan with a higher monthly premium. But even if you choose a plan with a higher deductible or out-of-pocket maximum in exchange for a lower premium, you’re still making a better choice than skipping health insurance altogether to save $100 a month on premiums, Keith said.

Health care you can get for free

If you bought your own health insurance plan after September 23, 2010, changes under health care reform require your plan to cover preventive care, like flu shots and blood pressure screenings, for free — your co-pay, co-insurance or deductible wouldn’t apply. If you bought a plan before that date, it might be “grandfathered in” and not subject to this new requirement. For more information about what’s covered under the preventive care provision, check out Healthcare.gov.

Options for people with pre-existing conditions

You may not be able to buy your own health insurance plan if you have a pre-existing condition like asthma or diabetes. By 2014, health care will prohibit insurers from denying coverage due to medical history. But until then, you may be able to get insured through the federal high-risk health insurance pool or a state program. Keith suggests visiting Coverageforall.org to see what programs are available in your state.

Emily Beaver is a San Francisco-based freelance writer who covers healthcare issues. Her writing has appeared in the Huffington Post and Youth Radio’s Generation Invincible series.

This should help stimulate the Real Estate market!

UNDER THE NEW HEALTH CARE BILL – DID YOU KNOW THAT ALL REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS ARE SUBJECT TO A 3.8% “SALES TAX”?

YOU CAN THANK NANCY, HARRY & BARACK (AND YOUR LOCAL CONGRESSMAN) FOR THIS ONE. IF YOU SELL YOUR $400,000 HOME, THIS WILL BE A $15,200 TAX.

Now that the healthcare bill has become law, do we need to worry about increased real estate taxes? After all, a 3.8% tax on a $300k home would be $11,140; the sale of a $750k home would be taxed $28,500!

The reality is that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act does require a 3.8% real estate tax on some home sales starting in 2013.

But don’t get upset just yet.

According to the non-partisan, consumer advocacy group FactCheck.org, middle-class Americans will not pay additional taxes on the sale of their homes. The 3.8% taxation requirement only applies to individuals who have an annual income of $200k or more, or couples who have an annual combined income of $250k or greater.

Another important fact to note is that the 3.8% taxation will not apply to the entire sale of a person’s home. It only applies to any capital gains greater than $250k for individuals or $500k for couples.

Therefore, if a single woman sold a $210k home, or a married couple with an annual income of $300k sold their $450k house, neither would face any additional taxes. While the 3.8% tax on the sale of homes will affect some people, it won’t be as bad as it seems.

For example, if a couple who has an annual income over $250k sell their home (which they originally purchased for $350k) for $900k they’ve made a profit of $550k. This couple would have to pay an additional 3.8% tax on $50,000 (i.e., the $550k profit minus the $500k capital gain threshold), for a total of $1,900.

One way to reduce the amount of capital gain on a home sale (therefore reducing the likelihood of having to pay the extra tax) is to calculate the cost of all capital improvements you’ve made while living in the home. Capital improvements include any major changes you’ve made which add value to your home. These may include major remodeling, reroofing, rewiring, or the addition of air conditioning, for example.

Maintenance performed to keep the home in good condition, such as painting or replacing carpeting, do not qualify as capital improvements. When calculating profits from your home sale, add the price you paid to purchase the home to the amount spent on capital improvements. This combined figure is subtracted from the sale price to determine your capital gain

If the sale of your home still exceeds the capital gain threshold, you may want to sell your home before 2013, when the tax takes effect.

Another option would be to consider seller-financing, where the seller carries back a note on the sale of their own house. Essentially, the seller would receive monthly mortgage payments from the buyer instead of receiving a large lump sum when the house is sold. However, homeowners can only carry back a note on their own home once every three years, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Safe Mortgage Licensing Act, which is expected to become a law by the end of 2010.

Probability of Developing Cancer

According to the American Cancer Society and their studies showcasing the probability of developing invasive cancers over selected age intervals there is a one in 70 chance of developing cancer before the age of 39 for men and a one in 48 chance for women. If we stretch it out even further then over ones entire lifetime there is a one in two chance of developing cancer for a male and a one in three chance for a female.

If the above statistics don’t scare you and shock you to some degree then consider that these are just cancer statistics! There are any other myriad number of different things that can and often do go wrong from a simple broken bone in a sports injury to an illness that you had never even heard of until the doctor sits you down to give you the diagnosis.

I’m not just rattling off these statistics to paint a doom and gloom picture, but to set the stage for three reasons I believe you need adequate health insurance benefits.

My Three Reasons

1. Very bad medical problems can and do happen to many of us—maybe even you.
2. Those very bad medical problems can be very expensive and potentially ruin one’s financial future if they do not have adequate health insurance.
3. It is a smart thing to purchase comprehensive health insurance coverage to protect not only your health but also your financial future.

The Cost of Common Health Procedures

According to ChangeHealthcare.com the cost of these common procedures at Tampa General Hospital close by where I live is somewhere in these ranges (keep in mind that these cost estimates are just for the hospital fees and does not include medications, extra tests, Doctors fees, etc.

I know from personal experience after talking with a friend of mine that after he developed leukemia the cost of his prescriptions alone would have been somewhere in the $3,500/month range without his health insurance. Stories like his are good stories to tell because he actually had health insurance coverage, where as the owner of an agency that sells Florida health insurance I could tell you many other stories from the flip side of people that ran their finances into the ground because they did not have adequate health insurance coverage):

• Heart Attack: $37,650 to $41,17
• Fracture of Upper Leg (Femur): $22,648 to $24,771
• Lung Disease: $49,963 to $51,366

Again, the cost estimates above are just the basic hospital average costs for Tampa General Hospital and do not include many of the associated fees that are involved.

Buy Health Insurance Before You Need It

Many people are of the mistaken belief that they should just wait until they develop a major illness before they buy health insurance. This kind of thinking is akin to someone who totals their car without having any car insurance and then goes to an auto insurance agent and attempts to buy collision coverage for their already totaled vehicle and expects the insurance company to pay for the damages to their car. The most responsible thing that you can do when it comes to caring for you and your family’s health (and securing your financial future) is to make sure that you have adequate health insurance at all times – before you may need it (and hopefully you never even need to use it!)

Compare Health Insurance Providers

If you have financial goals like buying a first home, getting out of debt, or any other number of great things then take the time to do some comparison shopping to find not only a cheap health insurance plan but one that will act as a safety net to protect your financial goals from the financial ruin that a uninsured medical bill could bring. Just like it is common knowledge that you can save money by doing a car insurance comparison every so often it is not as widely known but just as effective to shop around and compare health insurance providers in order to find an affordable plan.

Stick with large and trusted companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Aetna, Humana, etc. and stay away from discount health plans that masquerade as true health insurance but in reality are just hyped up coupon cards that leave you out in the cold with little to no coverage should you ever get hit with a large medical bill.

Do your homework to shop around and then choose a comprehensive major medical health insurance plan from a trusted nationwide company to make sure that your health care and financial future has an adequate safety net should the unfortunate happen.

Joel Ohman is a Certified Financial Planner and President of 360 Quote, LLC. He is a serial entrepreneur and is currently spearheading several successful consumer comparison websites including Credit Card Chaser and Health Insurance Providers.

Photo Credit: The Doctr

Over 47 million Americans lack health insurance; 39 percent of the uninsured are between the ages of 18 and 34, according to Qvisory.

It makes sense that young people are the least insured. We’re more likely to be in school or working part-time and not have access to employer-sponsored health insurance. We don’t qualify for government programs like Medicaid. Our incomes are low, so we can’t afford even the least expensive policies. Finally, because we’re young and healthy, many of us simply feel invincible and like we don’t need insurance.

Half of the states extend the age that dependents may be covered by their parents’ insurance beyond age 19.

If you live in one of these 25 states, your parents may be able to include you on their health insurance plan.

Medical bills are the leading cause of consumer bankruptcy.

According to a study by The New England Journal of Medicine, “illness or medical bills contributed to nearly two thirds, or 62 percent, of all bankruptcies in 2007—before the major impact of the housing collapse and current economic downturn”. If you get sick or injured and don’t have insurance, there’s a good chance your medical bills will drive you into bankruptcy. But the problem doesn’t stop with the uninsured. According to this related Consumer Reports article,

Just over three-quarters of people who suffered a bankruptcy due to illness were insured at the onset of their health issue. But the total out-of-pocket medical costs for those who had insurance when they became ill was a steep $17,749, on average. For those who didn’t have insurance, the average debt was $26,971.

Young adults may pay for a big part of healthcare reform.

Again, a big reason young people are under-insured is because we can’t afford coverage. The low-cost insurance options Washington is proposing as part of healthcare reform will help, but they don’t solve this problem entirely.

First, since young adults are healthier and less costly to insure, our premiums will subsidize the care of the older and the sicker. But most critically, if the government mandates that Americans have health insurance, we may have to pay a fine if we don’t purchase a policy. According to this Washington Post article:

[One bill] would fine individuals who do not purchase coverage. An early draft of the proposal set the penalty at $750 or $950 per year for single people, depending on income. But according to various insurance experts, even the least expensive plan under the bill could cost more than $100 per month, making it cheaper for people to pay the fine than to buy insurance.

In effect, this may not solve young Americans’ healthcare problem at all: it simply taxes those that continue to go without healthcare while providing less expensive (but potentially still unaffordable) plans.

You can buy health insurance on your own, right now.

Many young people don’t realize that you can buy health insurance even if you don’t get it through your employer, college, or parents. You probably can’t afford “Cadillac” health insurance plans like those offered by some employers, but you may be able to afford what are called “catastrophic” plans that will cover you should you get into an accident or suddenly become sick. Two resources can help:

• Qvisory has partnered with insurers to provide affordable plans specifically for young people. Learn more about Qvisory health insurance plans.
• eHealthInsurance is a Website that lets all consumers shop for and compare hundreds of different plans. Learn more about eHealthInsurance.

What do you think? Do you think the government should require Americans to buy health insurance or pay a fine? What would you do? Are you young and dealing with extraordinary healthcare costs? Were you insured? Please share your story in a comment.