This past weekend, I celebrated my graduation from college. I can tell you firsthand, there are two very important words for recent college graduates: the first is "congratulations!" and the second is "unemployed!" But, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported earlier this week, there's one more important word—"uninsured."

We all know that unemployment is on the rise, and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon. People are losing their jobs, and losing their health benefits. We've got the worst job market in about 25 years, and as workers are struggling to hold on to their jobs, a whole generation of recent college graduates are struggling to find a job for the first time.

In Pennsylvania and across the nation, many college grads are finding themselves out of luck when it comes to both finding a job and getting health care coverage. Believe me—I sympathize. Like most undergraduates, I took the option of staying on my parents' health insurance plan while I completed my four year degree. When you graduate, your status as a student disappears—and in most states, so does your health insurance. For many graduates, this means they're totally without health insurance until they find their first job, a prospect that seems more and more difficult as the economy sinks and unemployment rises. Those who are headed off to graduate school can keep the coverage they had as undergraduates, but for others, myself included, we're on our own.

"I won't be covered by the end of May," Stefanie Swanson of Doylestown, PA, who is graduating from Villanova University, told the Inquirer. "Hopefully, nothing will happen between now and when I get a job." 
 
How long parents can cover their children varies from state to state. Currently, there is a bill in the Pennsylvania Senate that would allow parents to cover their uninsured children until they reach 29. New Jersey allows young adults to stay on their parents insurance until they reach 31, while states like Texas, New Mexico, South Dakota, Illinois, and Colorado put the limit at 25.

Even those who have managed to find jobs are likely to earn lower wages that graduates in years past, and not all jobs offer health benefits. This only makes the problem worse-with student loans and without a job, or with a job that offers no benefits and a low salary, some choose to forgo health care coverage entirely. According to the Commonwealth Fund, young adults between 19 and 29 are the fastest growing group without health insurance in the United States, comprising over 13 million of the U.S. uninsured population in 2007. Aside from feeling that they cannot afford to purchase a health care policy on their own, some young adults feel like they don't need it. It's true-young adults are a very healthy segment of the population and are cheap to insure, but that doesn't mean they don't need coverage.

For example, Lateefah Holder, from Temple University, lost her health care coverage because her student status changed from full-time to part-time. Last year, she got the flu, passed out, and went to the hospital with a concussion, so she graduated with thousands of dollars in medical bills on top of her student loans. In addition to accidents, young adults are increasingly at risk for obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes, serious conditions chronic conditions that are going to be very costly down the road.

Successful health care reform will offer sustainable, affordable coverage to everyone, including young adults. It makes fiscal sense as well-young adults are cheap to insure, and providing them with regular care means prevention and wellness early on, which will save money and improve lives in the future.