Why I live at the PPO

As some of you may know, I've been living without health insurance for about 3 years now (which was illegal in Massachusetts for 1 of those years, but let's not tell Devall Patrick). Living without health insurance is like playing a giant game of chicken, except that you KNOW sickness doesn't blink and you KNOW eventually it will find you. Very much like death.

So, back in school, I'm required to have health insurance if I want to do things like: enroll in class, step foot on campus... that type of thing. So I have to buy into the partially subsidized health plan. So now I pay $300 for the year (a very fair price, on the surface). So I've been psuedo-sick all orientation week: my throat has been hurting and I've had a dry cough. So I wake up this morning (Saturday) and I'm feeling worse.

I enroll in my health plan which is retroactive to August 6, so for starters, I have to pay for weeks of coverage I never had. I decide that my illness now warrants a trip to a physician. I look up where I should go: Student health services. Okay, I planned for this eventuality. I figured a university plan would run through Student Health services first. So I check PUSH (Purdue Univ. Student Health) hours: they're closed on weekends. So I go back to the pamphlet for where to go "after hours." Well, I could go to another physician, but it's not an emergency, so I'd have to pay full price.

Thank god I've got this health plan.