Uninsured families typically don’t have the means to pay their hospital bills. The average  uninsured family can only afford to pay about 12 percent of hospital stays according to a report by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Hospital visits by uninsured patients who can’t pay their bills in full account for 95 percent of all the hospital bills accumulated by the uninsured, according to Insurance Journal. That amount of care equals about $73 billion a year, much of which creates higher costs for Americans who do have insurance.

Each year, close to two million uninsured Americans end up in the hospital with more than half facing bills over $10,000. According to this recent study, the vast majority of the country’s 50 million uninsured people don’t have any savings. The report found that half of families with income at 400 percent of the federal poverty level (which is $89,400 for a family of four) have financial assets totally less than $4,100.

The report found that living without health insurance is actually a financially riskier move than going without car or homeowner’s insurance. People are 50 percent more likely to have a car accident than to be hospitalized in a given year, but the average bill for a trip to the hospital is two and a half times greater than the cost of the average car accident. “Health insurance is critical in helping protect families from unexpected hospital costs,” Sherry Glied, HHS assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, told Insurance Journal. “This report shows that even higher-income uninsured families are struggling to meet the high costs of health care. No family should bear the burden of being one illness or accident away from bankruptcy.”

In the past as soon as college graduates grabbed their degrees they had to worry about finding a job with benefits. Typically insurance plans stopped coverage once school was done for good. But new changes in health care reform mean that adult children can stay under their parents’ plans until they are 26.

The LA Times talked to 22-year-old Boston University graduate Rochelle O’Sullivan who says she’s relieved she can keep her mom’s coverage. O’Sullivan broker her hip during a fall and needs good health coverage while she heals. “I’m worried about getting a job, getting experience,”  the mass communications major told the newspaper. “And if that means taking a job without insurance, I’d do that.”

The new law even covers adult children who don’t live at home and who may be married. But if the twenty-something-year-olds do find a job with benefits, they can’t opt to stay on their parents’ plan. For some recent grads that means they’ll give up mom and dad’s good coverage for entry level benefits that may not be as good.

According to a news release, WellPoint, the country’s largest public health insurer says they’ve seen the addition of 280,000 new members who fall under this new dependent provision. Aetna added roughly 100,000 young adults, Kaiser Permanente about 90,000 and Highmark says they saw an additional 72,000 young people added on. US Health and Human Services estimates that up to 1.2 million young adults will likely sign up during 2011.

Between books, tuition and rent, college students may not have much money leftover to pay for auto insurance. But the California Department of Insurance started a low cost insurance program specifically aimed at cash-strapped young adults, according to The Santa Monica College newspaper. The initiative began in 1999 as a pilot program in Los Angeles and San Francisco and has been expanding ever since. In 2007 the program opened up to residents of the entire state.

The idea is to give discounted insurance to students between the ages of 19 and 24 who otherwise couldn’t afford it. While any young resident may qualify, it’s typically been community college students who have benefited most, according to officials. “We try to focus on schools that are more impacted,” Rebecca Almanza of Imprenta Communications told the newspaper. Imprenta Communications is the PR firm hired to promote the program and they say that research shows Latinos, Asians and African Americans have the highest percentage of uninsured drivers.”Assuming that most other insurance carriers have overhead fees, pay their sales reps and agents percentages in California, while also assuming that people are of low income, it seems to be a great offer, particularly in the economic recession, which the US is in,” radiation therapy major Beatriz Esparaza told the Long Beach City College newspaper.   

So how can young adults take advantage of this coverage? You have to go through one of ten major insurance carriers, not the state. “The California Department of Insurance does not offer this policy or insurance,” Deputy Press Secretary Dave Althausen told the Santa Monica College newspaper. It costs less than $400 a year and in the past nine years more than 50,000 drivers have signed up. Other requirements include having your license for at least three years before applying, meeting income requirements of less than $27,075 for a single person or $36,425 for a couple and having no felony or misdemeanor convictions.

Those caught without insurance could have their license suspended or vehicle impounded. “There is no excuse for driving without insurance,” California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner told the newspaper. “The bottom line is that driving without insurance is irresponsible and illegal, so take advantage of this affordable program. It can be especially helpful to our college students, who may be struggling to make ends meet.”

While most people think of the poor as not having adequate insurance, there is now growing awareness of a lack of life insurance among middle-income Americans. Of course, “underinsured” is not the same as “uninsured”, but in the event of a catastrophe, that distinction could mean the difference between poverty and a comfortable living for the family members who are left behind.

With the introduction of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care plan, a glimmer hope has been rekindled for those American who have been turned down for health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

The downturn in the US economy is having a far-reaching and diverse effect. No clearer is this felt than by the US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). PBGC is a government-based agency that is responsible for insuring private-sector pension plans and for processing benefits if plans should happen to fail. As of its fiscal year end (August), PBGC lost an alarming $3 billion in investments.

Based on the reports published by leading researchers, over a third of all the patients that went to 37 health clinics in the state of Colorado on a single day turned out to be uninsured. This realization exposes the possibility that close to one and a half million people in the entire state could also suffer from a lack of adequate coverage.

Conducting the survey on a voluntary basis was the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, which collected information among patients who had private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. Their research showed an alarming figure: over 36% of the 948 that were surveyed were underinsured.