The New York Times – gearing up for the New York City Marathon with On The Run (Look! Old guys running marathons!) – takes a look at runnings who can’t get insurance.
Huh?
Well, apparently health insurance companies like runners because they are fit. They don’t, however, want to insure marathoners because they get hurt. Like all the time.
Another study published in 2008 in The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports found that 28 percent of 694 male runners polled sustained a lower-extremity injury while running in a marathon or in the month before it.
As a result, runners get lumped into the same category as overweight people of the same age who are greater risks for more serious (read: costly) health problems. Ridiculous but true.
I just ran five miles. As a blogger, I have free time on my hands. Let’s stop talking about concussions and discuss the fact that I can’t get cheaper health insurance.