Ball State

» medicare

By China at 9:36 AM

Medicare, Medicaid, who knows the difference between these health insurance plans along with many more out there? I just learned that Medicaid is a health care program for low-income, financially needy people that is set up by federal government and given out state by state. Medicare is not based off of need; rather it is something you or your spouse or parent has paid for through working or through insuring themselves (maybe if they were self-employed). Those are brief descriptions of what they are, but I don't know if anyone could really go into great detail about everyone of the health care plans out there (unless maybe you are trying to sell them to someone). Health insurance has always been something that is confusing to me. For now, thankfully, I am covered under my dad's insurance plan and I think it stays that way until I graduate college (or at least I hope so, otherwise I'm screwed). But one of my friends is not covered under her dad's family health insurance plan, which I think is really weird since we are the same age and the same year in college. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to pay for my own insurance (even though someday soon I will have to).

I think health insurance is a hard topic for young voters to follow. This is my first time voting in a presidential election and I am 21 years old. It is also my sisters first time voting and she is 18. Neither one of us has ever had to think about our health insurance plans or pay for it ourselves or know what they cover or what they don't cover. The extent of our knowledge on health insurance is dad gave us a card and sometimes we have to pay 8 dollars when we go to Walgreens to fill a prescription. I know, I'm 21 years old and it's sad that I don't know that much about health insurance. It just didn't seem as important to me as the other issues, like abortion, gas, the war and education to name a few that are extremely important to me as a student in the United States. But someone pointed out to me that I need to read up on health insurance because the candidate that I vote for will most likely be there or at least set the tone for the health insurance that I will need in a few years from now. It's weird how you need to think so far ahead when planning for real life.