Laid off from his job at a computer software company in Philadelphia, Andy Szamody wondered where he would find health coverage.

His firm told him it would offer a temporary policy that would cost $212 a month. But “when you’re not making any money, that seems like a lot of money,” Szamody said.

The local unemployment office informed him of other options, but jobless benefits disqualified Szamody for the cheapest, a basic plan that covered doctor visits but not prescriptions for $30 a month. In the end, he opted simply to do without.

“I find the whole insurance thing totally overwhelming and confusing,” Szamody said.

Szamody is one of an estimated 1.4 million Americans who lost insurance coverage during the past year due to layoffs. The total number of uninsured now stands at 41 million, according to the Census Bureau, and the number of young people without coverage is growing especially fast — those ages 18 to 34 increased by 800,000 in the last year to a total of more than 16 million.

Many, because they are single and without children, take a chance on not getting seriously ill or injured, a decision some experts say isn’t totally foolish.

“It’s not a bad bet,” said Len Nichols, an economist at the Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington, D.C.

“For healthy 20- and 30-year-olds, the immortals, the bet makes sense to them,” he said. “But if they do get the worst-case scenario, like cancer, they aren’t covered, and taxpayers end up covering their bets.”

When Andy Szamody, Devon, Pa., received a pink slip from his job at a computer software company in Philadelphia, he joined an estimated 1.4 million Americans who lost their insurance coverage because of layoffs in last year's weak economy. Many of them, in turn, become part of the much larger group -- 41 million-- who take a chance on not getting seriously ill or injured, and opt to live without insurance.

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a health care consumer advocacy group, said for most people, there’s no choice but to go without insurance.

“Unemployment compensation compared to health care costs is nowhere near enough to pay for coverage,” Pollack said.

Szamody admits he worries about getting sick or hurt — but not enough to forgo a snowboarding trip to Winter Park, Colo. And he doesn’t plan to get insurance until he finds a new job that covers him.

“I just see it as a waste of money,” he said. “I think, that’ll never happen to me, that bad stuff happens to other people. Of course, I never thought I would get laid off either.”

There aren’t enough affordable insurance alternatives for the newly unemployed, according to Diane Rowland, vice president of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, a nonprofit health care policy group based in Washington, D.C.

Employees, accustomed to sharing the cost with their employer, “are stunned and shocked by the sticker price,” Rowland said.