The Buzz: The Young and the Coverageless

The current health care debate has centered largely on the elderly, but as ScienceBloggers are pointing out, young adults have equally as much at stake in the outcome of health care reform. On Thus Spake Zuska, Zuska recounts the struggles of two different young women--one a victim of the Pittsburgh L.A. Fitness shooting earlier this month, the other a recent college graduate who was denied renewal of her insurance policy when she developed a medical condition during her first term of coverage. Jonah Lehrer considers the psychological bias that leads many young adults to opt out of coverage, a tendency to overlook more common occurrences--allergies or torn ligaments--and focus on more dramatic events like major attacks or collisions. And Mike the Mad Biologist responds to a reader with juvenile diabetes, taking insurance companies to task for prohibitively expensive copayments for insulin. "It's safe to assume that this is an attempt to gouge people who have no alternative," he says.

• Who Needs Health Insurance When You Can Sponsor A Car Wash?!?! on Thus Spake Zuska
• The Young and Healthy Don't Need to Waste Their Money On Health Insurance!!!! on Thus Spake Zuska
• Health Insurance on The Frontal Cortex
• The Reality of Health Insurance Copayments: The Insulin Edition on Mike the Mad Biologist