By Emily Berry

Staff Writer

For her 26th birthday six months ago, Mandy Morgan was dumped -- her parent's health insurance no longer covered her.

A few weeks before Christmas, Ms. Morgan, who expects to graduate from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a master's degree in psychology this summer, joined the ranks of the uninsured.

"It's extremely worrisome," she said. "I'll put off (seeing a doctor) for months and months until it gets to be a serious thing."

Ms. Morgan, who teaches a psychology lab class at UTC and works at her mother's office, said she has no plans to buy health insurance. She said she hopes to get those benefits as soon as she is able to get a full-time job after graduation.

Thousands of young people across the country are without health insurance, sometimes for the first time. Nearly two in five college graduates and half of high school graduates will be uninsured for some part of their first year after graduation, according to a report released in May 2006 by the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation and health care advocacy group.

The report's authors found that adults 19 to 29 were the fastest-growing segment of the uninsured population nationally. The number of uninsured young adults rose from 11.2 million in 2000 to 13.7 million in 2004.

A short-term individual health insurance policy can be an inexpensive solution to being uninsured, said Ellen Laden, spokeswoman for GoldenRule Insurance, the individual product division of United Healthcare. Short-term policies are meant for people such as college graduates or others between jobs who need a policy for one to six months.

Insurance broker Bob Hill, of Sunbelt Insurance in Chattanooga, said short-term policies have been popular with his customers, frequently parents buying policies for their children to bridge the gap between college and a job.

"I think they're shocked that they are that cheap, and once mom finds out about it, she'll call you back for the other kids," he said.

A short-term policy for a 20-year-old man costs about $43 a month, he said.

Despite the relatively low cost of some individual policies, it's difficult to market to the group insurance companies call "young invincibles." But it's foolhardy to go without health insurance, Ms. Laden said.

"Having an appendix rupture, even if it's just an overnight stay, conceivably you could run up a $10,000 hospital bill," she said. "Facing financial ruin before you begin is not the way someone wants to start their life."

Wellpoint, the insurance company that operates BlueCross BlueShield plans in several states including Georgia, has mounted a campaign to capture the "young invincible" market by catering to them with Tonik, an individual health plan with dental, vision and prescription drug coverage that starts at $73 a month. Tonik and its twin program, called Sound, are available in eight states, including Georgia.

Tonik has a sleek, colorful Web page, cleverly named products -- the highest-deductible plan is called Thrill Seeker -- and young people answer the phone when customers call with questions, said Jude Thompson, president of the individual market for Wellpoint.

"What we're trying to do is build products that you want, not something I want you to want," he said.

E-mail Emily Berry at eberry@timesfreepress.com

ON THE WEB:

* Individual health plans from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee

www.bcbst.com/health-plans/individual

* Individual Health Plans from Golden Rule (United Healthcare)

www.goldenrule.com

* Tonik health insurance, Georgia (unavailable in Tennessee)

www.tonikhealth.com/ga