GLM TEAM 
If you’re young and healthy, you probably don’t think too much about serious health concerns like a dread disease, a chronic illness or having a major operation. Add to that the fact that medical aid is getting increasingly expensive with each passing year, and it’s no wonder many young people are opting out of having medical aid altogether. Data released by healthcare company AfroCentric in 2023 found that only 2.8% of Afrocentric’s 3.8 million medical scheme members, who are on medical schemes such as Bonitas and Fedhealth, are under 35 years old.
So, should medical aid still be a priority if you’re young and don’t have any health complications?
The short answer is yes. Even if you’re in perfect health, accidents can happen at any time – and in South Africa, private medical treatment is expensive. Fedhealth Principal Jeremy Yatt gives the example of an otherwise healthy 33-year-old Fedhealth member who was involved in a motorbike accident. As a result, he needed to stay in hospital for 81 days, and the bill at the end came to just over R2.7 million. If the man hadn’t had medical aid in place, he would have been liable for this cost.
While it’s clear that medical aid is crucial for a dramatic accident, it’s also helpful for more minor incidents too. For example, perhaps you fall and hit your head and need to get an MRI, or you develop a migraine and need to get expensive medication. Or, maybe you cut your foot and need to get stitches late at night. In order to get quality private medical care where you don’t have to wait to be treated, even these relatively non-serious incidents can cost thousands of rands. As a young person, you may not have this money freely available, and this is where medical aid can be the hero you never thought you needed.
Protecting your assets
It’s useful to look at medical aid as a way of protecting both yourself and the financial assets you’ve built up so far. Getting timely and quality medical treatment helps to protect your health and help you recover more quickly – but it also means you won’t have to dip into your savings or sell an asset to get the funds to pay for it. After all, if you get any kind of medical treatment, you’ll be billed a lump sum cost rather than a small amount you can pay off over time (for example if you pay off a car). Rather than selling your bike or laptop to get the money you need, for example, your medical aid will cover this cost.
The younger you join, the better
Medical aids have waiting periods attached to them for pre-existing conditions, which means the scheme doesn’t have to cover the costs of that condition for a certain period of time – usually around 12 months. So, if you join the scheme with a specific medical condition, chances are you won’t be covered for it for a year after you join. An important inclusion in the list of pre-existing conditions is pregnancy. If you wait and only join a medical aid scheme when you’re already pregnant, you won’t be covered for medical treatment until after your baby is born.
You’re part of a community
With medical aid, you’re part of a community, in that you’re helping to ensure that other medical aid members (as well as yourself) are able to get the treatment they need that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. For example, if a baby is born prematurely and requires special treatment, the costs would be covered by a medical aid scheme thanks in part to your contribution to that scheme. In this way, medical aid is a bit like a stokvel: everyone is contributing for the greater whole, to the benefit of everyone in the community. And, when your turn comes around, that same medical aid community will be there for you thanks to others’ contributions.
While the price of medical aid may be increasing each year, if you’re young and healthy you can still be smart and shop around for the medical aid that’s most relevant to your age and life stage in order to keep your monthly contributions as low as possible. One example is Fedhealth’s flexiFED Savvy product, which has been specifically developed for young and healthy members under the age of 35, and is priced at just under R1000 per month. Costs are kept low because day-to-day benefits can be added on later if you can afford them or need them in future – so you don’t pay for them until you need them.
While you may think of medical aid as something that’s optional and only really necessary when you’re older, accidents can happen to you at any age, even if you’re in perfect health now. If the unexpected happens, the last thing you want is to be left with a huge medical bill from a private health provider. So while a medical aid contribution may seem like a sizeable chunk of your take-home pay each month, you can’t afford not to have it.
About The Author
Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter
