Thinking About the Uninsured: By Choice or Circumstance?

Written by Dorothy Harrigan to New York Magazine, April 7, 2007.

Dear Editor:

Something struck me while reading David Amsden’s article “The Young Invincibles” [dealing with the “uninsured in New York City”—editor] They sure all look alike! One Asian-American in a sea of white, twenty-something hipsters is the only thing in your spread that speaks to the great diversity of New York City. The fact that these young, privileged people are uninsured is largely their own choice. Am I supposed to feel sorry for the guy who works at Home Depot but doesn’t have the offered insurance because he forgot to sign up for it? Most of these people are aspiring artists, they were born fortunate enough to live out their dreams and that is not a bad thing at all. If they want insurance, they might have to put down their MacBooks for a second and go work in a bank.

If this were a real article about the insurance crisis in America, it would focus on the millions of poverty-stricken Americans who work long days at thankless jobs where employers are able to get by without giving their employees a single benefit. A lot of the article would have focused on the insurance problem among young, poor minorities, but you have chosen to ignore that issue here. The article comes across as a snapshot of America’s brats.

I am young myself, without insurance and it’s a constant struggle. All the same, I am aware that since I have chosen to pursue my artistic dreams and make my own work schedule so that I can travel the world, it is my problem—not someone else’s. What is my problem, and the rest of America’s, is the policy toward the working uninsured. Millions of immigrants work everyday without an ounce of protection against accidents and disease. Most of these kids in your article live alone and don’t have a single dependent. Don’t you think people working to support an entire family deserve a little bit of light shown on their situation?

I’ll leave you with this. If you were aiming for a portrait of America’s or even just New York City’s uninsured population, you failed miserably. It doesn’t even look like you traveled to more than one neighborhood.

—Sincerely
—Dorothy Harrigan
—Brooklyn, NY

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