photo: TheGiantVermin/ BY-NC-SA

Are you a thrill-seeker, a part-time daredevil or a calculated risk-taker? A health plan aimed at 19-29 year-olds would be happy to let you be any of the three—for a deductible of course.

Tonik Health Insurance is for young (aka high-risk but healthy) people and is owned by Blue Cross. Their marketing campaign, which is advertised heavily on younger-oriented sites like The Huffington Post, looks more like an iPod commercial than a place to buy health insurance.

And, that’s the idea. Tonik has won awards for its unique marketing, and has grown more popular as more and more young people find themselves without jobs that offer coverage.

Ryan Simon has been on Tonik since he was 20. Now 23, he has mixed feelings about his “calculated risk-taker” plan. After he aged out of his family insurance, Simon’s father found the Tonik plan and suggested he take a look.

“He told me to look through the fine print, but at 20 I wasn’t adept at researching health insurance. I think most people, however old they are, don’t understand health insurance,” Simon said.

Tonik is designed for Simon’s demographic—referred to by insurance companies as “young invincibles”. Young invincibles are 19-29 year-olds who have recently graduated or who don’t get insurance from their jobs. There are over 13.2 million “young invincibles” in America, and they make up over 30% of the uninsured population.

Tonik’s approach is that getting stuck with a deductible is better than the risk of going uninsured.

"Those people that choose to go uninsured are literally putting their financial futures at risk," said Richard White, a vice president with Wellpoint Blue Cross Blue Shield told CBS. "They're literally one accident away from having their future impacted by a costly accident."

Young invincibles are great for insurers because they tend not to get sick and go to a doctor as much as older people. They are more likely to engage in high-risk behavior—in Simon’s case, riding a bike daily without a helmet.

When Simon got into a bike accident last winter he thought he knew his arm wasn't broken, but thought he should get it checked out.

“I was at the hospital for 3 hours, they took a couple of x-rays, gave me a shot, a pill and I spoke with a doctor. And that was $3000.” Under the Tonik plan’s deductible, that visit cost him over $1000.  For Simon, that meant a month’s salary.

Tonik's advertising argues that cost is better than the alternative. One ad features a cartoon figure with an African mask dancing. The caption reads: "There’s a reason the phrase isn’t you should see a witch doctor for that.” The dancing figure fades and the ad simply reads, “There’s no substitute for professional medical help”.

Tonik's approach is so weird in comparison to other health plans that it was even the source of  a sketch on The Daily Show when it was launched in 2005.

Although Simon admits Tonik’s advertising is effective, he has mixed feelings about it.
“It’s pretty condescending to make young people feel more comfortable with health insurance by using certain graphics and taglines. A health insurance provider is not something you need to feel automatically comfortable with—it’s something you need to understand.”

Now that Simon understands the fine print, he’s looking to switch to a plan with better coverage. But until then, like so many Americans, he’ll have to settle for health insurance that’s just good enough.