Stephen Gilchrist, Stoneham

By Scott Kearnan - When it comes to his health, Stephen Gilchrist has just one demand: “I don’t want to be a statistic.”

There seems to be little chance of that. Gilchrist takes care of himself, living the kind of healthy, active lifestyle that would make any doctor proud. First and foremost, he says, he loves to exercise; that much is obvious from the sneakers, track pants, and Nike t-shirt he’s wearing as he details his upcoming cardio workout.

And Gilchrist, who was diagnosed with high blood pressure as a teenager, is careful with his diet, too. Though he’s requested to meet up at a fast food restaurant for our conversation, it’s only for the burger joint’s convenient proximity to his local gym, and not for an easy excuse to snag some French fries or a milk shake. Heck, he won’t even accept an offer to buy him coffee.

“Oh, no thanks,” he says, leaning back with a smile. “Don’t want too much caffeine before the gym.”

Health consciousness seems to come naturally to Gilchrist. At 24 years old he’s still a recent college graduate working to establish his career. But even when he was fresh out of school, he placed a high priority on maintaining comprehensive health coverage.

“From the beginning, I felt the need to have health coverage,” says Gilchrist. While a student at the University of Maryland, Gilchrist was covered under his father’s employer-sponsored insurance plan; but once he graduated in 2006, he was faced with the daunting prospect — not to mention sticker shock — of identifying and paying for a health plan all on his own. For help, he turned to — who else? — his parents.

“My mom went down to her family care center in Stoneham,” Gilchrist recalls. “She basically asked them what a person should do in my situation [given] my age, that I had just finished school and wasn’t employed…”

His mother’s research turned Gilchrist on to Commonwealth Care, and he did the rest. “My two main factors were cost and the type of coverage,” says Gilchrist, a park ranger with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Because the park ranger job is a seasonal one, running about six months out of the year, Gilchrist is holding on to Commonwealth Care as his insurer. Besides, he’s still not entirely sure what he wants to do with his life. His degree is in History, he has a passion for writing, and he has the kind of outgoing personality that demands some kind of interpersonal contact in his work.

But wherever he ends up, his health will be paramount; and he’s glad that there are subsidized options available to make quality care accessible to everyone.

“At the time that Massachusetts passed the new law [Chapter 58], I would hear things on TV about millions of Americans [being uninsured],” he recalls. “Today, it’s a right. You should have fair and equitable coverage. Because I think the healthier you are, the more productive citizen you can be.”