Of course it is safe to go without health insurance, just like it is safe to drive without a spare tire until you have a flat. Then it becomes a problem. If you are a multi-millionaire and can pay for whatever foreseeable accident or illness that might befall you then you probably don't "need" health insurance. If you are like most Americans then you might not have a pile of money stashed away for an unexpected illness or injury and that is why you have health insurance.
This is the kind of bad judgment call that can seriously mess up your financial life and perhaps life in general. Just taking a good fall from your bicycle and needing some orthopedic surgery can cost tens of thousands of dollars (I recently had a friend have such an experience), a normal child birth will probably put you back $7000 to $10,000, and would you like that new cure for Hepatitis C? A bargain at over $80,000 for that round of treatment.
You may say, I'll just go to the emergency room at our local public hospital and they'll treat me and then write it off. Don't count on it, those days are pretty much over unless you are really, truly poor (in which case you should be enrolled in Medicaid). But with the financial losses and reductions in reimbursement levels that hospitals are contending with these days I can assure you that they will turn you over to collections in an effort to get the money you owe them.
Agent Owner, Gilmore Insurance Services, Marysville, Washington State
Is it safe to go without health insurance? Well define safe? Does safe mean protected from risk? Then the answer would be no as going without insurance means in order to satisfy taking care of risk, you would have to have financial means to cover any possibility of medical expenses.
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This is the kind of bad judgment call that can seriously mess up your financial life and perhaps life in general. Just taking a good fall from your bicycle and needing some orthopedic surgery can cost tens of thousands of dollars (I recently had a friend have such an experience), a normal child birth will probably put you back $7000 to $10,000, and would you like that new cure for Hepatitis C? A bargain at over $80,000 for that round of treatment.
You may say, I'll just go to the emergency room at our local public hospital and they'll treat me and then write it off. Don't count on it, those days are pretty much over unless you are really, truly poor (in which case you should be enrolled in Medicaid). But with the financial losses and reductions in reimbursement levels that hospitals are contending with these days I can assure you that they will turn you over to collections in an effort to get the money you owe them.