Not Getting Married for Health Insurance

Today's New York Daily News had an interesting article about a reporter and his wife who canceled their original wedding and opted for a no frills wedding in Central Park. It's kind of a cute story and as someone who is planning a wedding herself I was interested to see one bride's journey to what is arguably one of the most important days of her life. Yet, as a woman who almost recently lost her job myself, I was more than a little put off by the author's decision to marry for, in her words, health care coverage.

On Monday night, our save-the-date notes finally arrived, ready to be proofed.

On Tuesday morning, when I went into work, I became one of the 294,000 New Yorkers who will lose their jobs before this recession is done.

In my case, due to budget cutbacks, the next day would be my last on the job. I had five days of health care left. After that, I would be responsible for paying my own COBRA (temporary coverage), a punishing $500 a month.

I called to tell Adam the news. "Do you want me to cancel the dog walker?" he asked. I burst into tears.

That night, we sat down to discuss our delicate new economic balance.
"Well," I ventured, "we could get married."

I suppose I should be more sympathetic. Losing your job sucks. Having to pay COBRA would also suck. Luckily if I had been laid off I was going to be covered under the State's health plan at only $48 a month for one year so I wasn't going to be subject to the same fate. Yet, of course when it seemed all was hopeless I thought "heck, why don't we just do this at City Hall?" That way we'd save a ton on forgoing the typical wedding and I wouldn't have any out of pocket health care expenses. Heck, even if we got married tomorrow and my fiance went on my health care coverage, his small employer would cut him a $4000 check for going off their plan.

But it just seems like this chick just wanted an easy out. She frets about canceling her dog-walker? She also mentions an impromptu honeymoon trip to Vancouver. Not once does she mention having a pre-existing condition and yes I realize health insurance is not something even the healthy should do without, but for $500 a month I would have just but the bullet for five months until her pre-planned September wedding.

Also nothing in the article talks about her realizing that spending a lot of money on a wedding wasn't something she and her husband placed a lot of value on given their current cirumstances. Tell me if you read it differently but to me it sounds like "I needed health insurance so we got married," Not very romantic.

If there's anything to learn from this experience it's this: don't plan a wedding until you have emergency savings to fall back on in case of, well, an emergency. I'll be trying my best to do just that in the coming months.