The Health Insurance Plot

September 10, 2020 7:25 AM

The Health Insurance Plot is a cousin to the Marriage Plot, which refers to a story that concludes in a marriage. All of Jane Austen’s novels, for example, end with weddings. At the time, marriage was essentially permanent and offered Austenian heroines domestic and financial security—a kind of happy ending. The characters embroiled in a Health Insurance Plot may have a specific ailment amplifying the stakes of needing insurance, but they are rarely the primary plot. These characters are usually millennial women, struggling with life things: love, sex, the gig “economy,” racism, having a body, making art. These novels aren’t stories about women with diseases. They’re stories about women who—much like their Austenian predecessors—are seeking security.
posted by ChuraChura (6 comments total)

This piece really resonated with me. I was between jobs not that long ago, and in America, at least, it truly feels like passing over an abyss when you go without health insurance for for an extended period of time. The promise of it really can trump almost any concern about a job, as the author notes.
posted by Transmissions From Vrillon at 8:13 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

That is a good essay even though it’s wrong (I think unironically?) about the security of marriage. The analogy to modern jobs is even stronger when you remember how dangerous it was to be married to an incompetent or cruel husband*.

Since marriage was basically irreversible, its associated domestic and financial security was assured over time. In Austen’s Mansfield Park, when Fanny and Edmund marry, their happiness is “as secure as earthly happiness can be.”


Earthly happiness cannot be very secure. Austen is an ironist. She described some unhappy marriages and more that were likely to be. Decision making from the weaker and less-informed side is a really strong analogy to getting a job. Etc.!

* Cf. Fanny Trollope’s life.
posted by clew at 8:47 AM on September 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

There was a finality to the Marriage Plot, but getting health insurance is no final thing. Health insurance is not wed to these characters by law. People lose their health insurance all the time. In the Health Insurance Plot, closure is untenable because insecurity is likely to return.

I actually think these are about equal in the security they provide. In part because Austen showed more impoverished widows, single moms, and couples living beyond their means than she showed couples with enough money for their needs. With a high enough mortality rate, even marriage doesn't seem that final in Austen's time. I mean, Sense & Sensibility starts off with Mrs Dashwood's husband dying, which means she's kicked out of her house with three teenagers to finish raising and no inheritance to help. It was clearly a sensible marriage for her to have made and had looked like a good future. I don't think ending the book on a marriage negates the examples throughout for how they go wrong and fail to provide the security hoped for.
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:11 AM on September 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

The amount of federal money doled out to states supposedly for welfare and anti-poverty efforts that instead goes into pro-marriage programs is staggering and infuriating. It makes sense that the gaps in our social safety net create echos of meffing Georgian era coupling concerns.
posted by es_de_bah at 11:34 AM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

This was really interesting, thank you for posting. I'm halfway through Luster right now, and this issue is so central to that book.

I know so many couples that have separated but have not divorced because of needing the (paper) marriage for health insurance. It is a terrible system and causes so much hurt and stress.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:09 AM on September 11, 2020

All of Jane Austen’s novels, for example, end with weddings.

Spoiler alert!
posted by bendy at 9:42 PM on September 11, 2020