Did you know that even some fashionable, attractive white people don't have health insurance? It's true! Today, New York magazine goes deep inside this shocking phenomenon, exploring the lives of people who may, yes, be way cooler than New York's 'hedge funders and their mommy-wives' target audience, but who are also way more totally fucked if they get appendicitis. It's a different angle on the typical 'let's pat ourselves on the back while eating Berkshire pork' article, but still heartwarming in that same way. Sure, the twentysomethings in the article's accompanying photo portfolio may be blessed with great bone structure and cool jobs, but they will have to wait in the emergency room like some kind of commoners if they injure themselves while snowboarding!

Yes, it's better to be middle-aged and moneyed and fully insured. It is! There is no reason to envy someone like Andrew Ondrejcak, whose cautionary tale begins and ends the article.

Ondrejcak's appendix almost burst when he was a bakery employee. Years later, he shares a studio space with the gals from anointed design duo Vena Cava and "conceptualizes" sets for the likes of Alice Roi. But while he may seem successful, he's still haunted by the debt he racked up during his unplanned hospital stay: "The other day, I tried to apply for an extension on my credit limit and they rejected it." He still doesn't have health insurance. There is a lesson in there! But what is it? Surely it's not just "be insured?" (After all, any useful lesson is hidden down in the bottom third, where you find out what poor people have known for ages—don't pay your hospital bill, and they cut the bill to zero.) Or maybe it's "be rich!"

Actually, maybe the lesson is "don't be gay." After all, New York magazine itself doesn't extend insurance benefits to the same-sex partners of its gay employees. Let's hope they are all young and invincible!

A Generation Uninsured [NYMag]