My 26 year Old son just graduated from UNCW with a masters. When he looked at the 6 month extension on his crappy student insurance we were told it was 3600 FOR 6 MONTHS.
The market for private, full-coverage, individual health insurance is a “lemons” market. Many relatively healthy people not covered under their employer's plan roll the dice and self-insure or they shop around for a high-deductible, high co-payment plan. That leaves the relatively unhealthy or otherwise high-risk people in the pool for full-coverage, low-deductible policies, and insurance companies charge higher premiums accordingly.