My wife and me are currently enrolled in college. Initially we could care less about insurance, we figured were young, were healthy, we will graduate in a couple of years and get real jobs, we could wait. But when my 23 year cousin was diagnosed with cancer it really opened our eyes.
We have a very limited combined income. If you have parents with insurance in most states you could be covered under their policy until the age of 24. The age may fluctuate depending on your provider and so can the amount of college units they require. However, since neither of our parents have insurance this information was no help.
I take antidepressants and was able to acquire them for a very affordable price at my county mental health center. My wife takes Adderall XR a medicine for ADD that the mental health center doesn’t cover. We were paying for this prescription out of pocket and at time when the doctor changed her dosage the prescription was costing us $600 a month. Not to mention the $120 monthly doctor visits.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I tried to get an affordable HMO or PPO but due to our prescription status they wanted over three hundred dollars a month with ridiculous deductibles. We were denied assistance at the welfare office. I was in tears how could I help my wife. I know she needs this medication but we truly can’t afford it! They don’t make a generic brand of Adderall XR and the other drugs for ADD haven’t worked for my wife.
Finally I took the advice of a fellow student and walked in to the Student Health Center. They were able to assist us with a semester by semester coverage. The final charges were under two hundred dollars a month and everything has worked out just fine for us. Every case is unique one of the above methods that didn’t work for me could work for you. There was a very nice insurance broker who assisted me when I was looking for an HMO and PPO. There is help out there if your willing to do the footwork. Don’t leave any stone unturned, be relentless in your research, and remember there are a lot of options out there.