Exhausted with school and work, Tommy wanted to take a semester off and decide what to do with his life. He was a 21-year-old Johnson County Community College student.

“He was one of the healthiest kids I knew,” says Irma Royal, his mother. “He had never been sick.” While Tommy was taking his break from school, he became ineligible for his parent’s health insurance. That March, Tommy became ill and started complaining of cold-like symptoms.

“We thought that he just had a cold or sinus problems, but we took him to all kinds of specialists and no one was able to diagnose him,” says Irma. “Finally we took him to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, and they finally diagnosed him with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. By that time he couldn’t eat or breathe on his own. He had to be put on a respirator on his birthday.”

With no insurance for Tommy and hospital bills piling up, Irma decided that she could not afford the around-the-clock nurses required to care for him, so she learned how to care for him in her home. She learned how to administer IVs and use the complicated machines that were helping to keep Tommy alive. She and her husband took turns taking shifts watching over Tommy.

In the end Tommy lost his battle with Lou Gehrig’s Disease eight months after he was diagnosed and just over a year after he started to show symptoms. In that time, Tommy racked up about $250,000 in hospital bills.

Tommy was just like one of the many students and young adults that don’t have health insurance. In recent years the number of uninsured students and young adults have risen due to rising costs and difficulty of receiving insurance. Without insurance students are vulnerable to large unexpected medical bills.

According to the United States Census, 8 million people between 19 and 24, or 28.1 percent, were uninsured in 2007, the highest of any age group. In Kansas, 29.4 of those between 19 and 24 are uninsured. Douglas County has the highest uninsured rate of any county in eastern Kansas at 18.8 percent for all ages.

Diana Malott, assistant director of Student Health Services, says she believes that all students should have health insurance. “One of the biggest reasons for students to not be able to finish their schooling is unexpected medical bills,” says Malott.

Malott says one reason that so many college students are uninsured is because they are generally healthy and overlook the need for health insurance. But she also says that it’s important for students to think about their health insurance before they need it and to prepare for the future to protect themselves from large unexpected medical costs.

University of Kansas students are eligible for health insurance through the Kansas Board of Regents for $915 annually or $540 for both the fall and spring semesters as long as the student is taking at least six credit hours per semester. The premium for a family is $7,945 annually. Malott says the plan is very comprehensive and comparable to those offered by employers.

Bill Larzalere, staff attorney for Legal Services for Students, says he also thinks it’s important for everyone to have health insurance. Larzalere says that without insurance, students may accumulate large medical debts and have to make deals with hospitals in order to pay their bill, but they may be paying back the hospital for 10 or 20 years. Larzalere says another option can be to file for bankruptcy.

“You never know when there is going to be a problem,” says Larzalere, “and if they are not covered by their parent’s insurance, or if they don’t have the student insurance, then they are going to have this huge debt that most students or most people just can’t pay. That’s when you get into the issue of filing for bankruptcy.”

According to the August 2009 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, 62.1 percent of Bankruptcies were caused by medical issues in 2007, up from 46.2 percent in 2001.

According to the Center for Disease Control, 53 percent say that the reason they didn’t have health insurance was because of the cost while 27 percent say it’s because they either lost their job or changed jobs recently. Six percent say the reason was because they recently left school or are ineligible because of their age.