How I Will Be Rich

There is one investment out there that you absolutely must make. I’ve never heard of a single financial adviser or investment guru that will tell you any different. In fact, I even have a personal story that just solidifies this statement. Health Insurance is the one investment that everyone needs to have. There is no arguing with this statement.

I have this uncle who makes great money, has a great job and has very little expenses. He’s not married and lives in a two bedroom apartment. He was doing just fine. In fact, he was probably living a much higher standard of living than most people, seeing as he had low expenses and such a high paying job. He was in a great place in his life. He’s somewhat of a tightwad, however. That’s just how he was brought up. Unfortunately, he didn’t really know the difference between being frugal and being cheap. He wanted to save money wherever possible. The biggest mistake he’s made in his entire life was deciding to skip out on paying for health insurance.

One day, while out at a clients house, my uncle’s partner called my mom. He told us that he just wasn’t acting right. My uncle kept forgetting where he was and asking the same questions multiple times. Something really strange was going on with him. We really didn’t think much of it that day. The following day we received a call claiming that my uncle had not yet arrived at work. He was already an hour late. My mom made a call to my uncle to discover that he was sitting in the parking lot of his previous employer. Now we knew that something was definitely wrong. We told him to come over to our shop, which was less than a mile down the road, and he agreed to head this way. About an hour had passed and he still had not arrived. Once again, we called him on his cell phone to learn that he was completely lost. We told him to pull over on the side of the road, tell us what street he was on, and we would come pick him up. Luckily for us, he was in sound enough mind to do this.

We rushed him to the emergency room to get checked out and on the entire drive he kept asking where he was and what was going on. It was really strange and scary. After arriving at the hospital, they rushed him to get a cat scan. He had a brain tumor. We were told that if he had gone one more day with this, he may not have woken up. Luckily, the tumor was not malignant. They were able to place a shunt and, to this day, he’s been back to normal. That is to say, he’s been back to normal mentally. Financially… That’s a different story.

This uncle opted out of health insurance. Once all was said and done, he owed the hospital about $100,000. He was living well but he definitely didn’t have that kind of money. His family tried to help out as much as possible but to this day, he’s still paying for it. I can understand that it may be hard to justify paying for something when you’re not seeing the benefits but when that day comes that you really need it, it can completely wipe you out. My uncle could be paying for this for the rest of his life. The really unfortunate part is, now that he’s had preexisting problems, he’s having a hard time getting health insurance. He still, to this day, does not have any.

Don’t make the same mistake as my uncle. Invest in some good health insurance. If that day ever comes along where you really need it, you will be so thankful that you had.

-M

Popularity: 15% [?]

 Subscribe in a reader