It’s open enrollment for 2023 health insurance for lots of folks — a time when you might find yourself asking: what good is health insurance anyway?

One listener wrote to us about his son, a student with no income. Dad asks, If the son could get charity care (financial assistance) at his local hospital…. should he bother getting health insurance?

The big picture question: If you’re broke, and can’t get insurance from work, what are your best options?

The big picture answer: It totally depends!

Do you live in a state that expanded Medicaid?
What are the financial-assistance policies like at the hospitals around you?
What kind of health care do you know you’re going to need?

We had expert help here: Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, and . Jared Walker, founder of Dollar For, and a super-expert on charity care.

If you want to go deeper:

We did a three-part series on picking health insurance in our First Aid Kit newsletter. Start here.
An episode from last year explored some more dos and don’ts for picking health insurance.
In a 2018 episode, we talked with another listener — a “financial therapist” — who had her own deep questions about health insurance.

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Here’s a transcript of this episode.
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