It’s not the heat, it’s the humanity.

Now you know, Barry–don’t get conservatives riled up in August.

Now that I’m on my last week of work, my thoughts are turning to health care in a very immediate and non-abstract way. Who cares about socialism, I’m about to lose my meds! My $15 co-pay!

I was on an excellent group plan paid for by my employer, a plan that ends this Friday, but which I can opt to stay on through COBRA, for a breezy $825/mo. (This is 10% more than my monthly rent, if that gives you any indication as to my ability to pay such a cost.)

The only plan I can realistically afford long-term is the basic, no-frills Empire Blue Health Blue Shield, at $151/mo. It provides nothing in the way of physician visits or pharmaceuticals. It’s basically coma insurance, or if-I-get-shot-or-hit-by-a-car insurance, or damn-he-was-awfully-young-for-a-stroke insurance. In car insurance terms, it’s catastrophic.

If I were to be uninsured and something were to happen to me that would require long-term hospitalization or surgery, it would effectively bankrupt my family, the people who, for all my intentions of being financially independent, would end up bearing the cost of my health. Because they’re family.

When you’re a young person with financially comfortable parents or family members, there’s no such thing as being uninsured. You have traditional health insurance or else–like it or not–your parents are your insurance. You don’t have the option of waving them off from the hospital bed.They will go broke saving your stupid, short-sighted life.

One of these insurance options costs you $150 a month. The other is cheaper, but requires that you not think too hard about how selfish and reckless you’re being. That’s why it frustrates me that so many of my “starving artist” friends go uninsured. They think that it’s a choice that only affects themselves, and some of them really do think that they can’t afford it. But in reality these are just children playing at being bohemians in the big city, and by not taking care of their lives’ contingencies, they are insuring that their parents will still be cleaning up their messes.

So please, America, stop being insane. For the sake of your retirement fund and your stupid uninsured sons and daughters, make health care affordable.