This diary was written by Robert Nelb, a Senior Fellow and National Policy Coordinator at The Roosevelt Institution, a non-partisan think tank for and by college students. Rob specializes in issues pertaining to public health. Thank you, Rob, for writing this diary for us!
Rob will be joining us below in the comments, where he will be posting as RNelb.
In December, the last thing you probably want to think about is your health. Maybe you’re a student overdosing on caffeine and pulling all-nighters for exams, maybe you’re a twenty-something who consumed a few too many cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at the company holiday party, or maybe you’re like me and decided to play football in the snow for three hours today despite just having gotten over a cold...
No matter how invincible we feel as a young adult, the truth is all of us will get sick whether we like it or not. So whether we like it or not, it’s time to talk about health care.
Not your Momma’s health care plan...
Health care has been in the news a lot these days as the number one issue on voter’s minds for a lot of good reasons. Not only are 45 million Americans are uninsured, but life expectancy in the US also remains below most developed countries, and the majority of consumers are dissatisfied with the quality of the current system. According to recent reports, $480 billion is wasted each year on health care when US spending is compared to other nations, and health care costs are expected to double to over $4.1 trillionin the next ten years.
How do all these statistics affect us? Well, in addition to having to pay for the exponential cost of treating our parents, our generation is also the most likely to be uninsured. In fact, a full 60% of the uninsured in this country are under the age of 35.
If you think of how our health care "system" works, the fact that so many young adults fall through the cracks shouldn’t be a surprise. Momma may cover for health insurance while you’re in school, but afterwards, you’re on your own whether you like it or not. According to a recent report from the Commonwealth Fund, 38% of recent college grads were uninsured for some period of time in the year after their college graduation.
It’s no problem though because we’re invincible, right?
Wrong. Most may get by unscathed, but many follow the predictable pattern of ending up in the emergency rooms with huge bills because they missed some basic preventive care. Health costs are a leading cause of bankruptcy in our demographic and society picks up the rest of this tab. It’s a risk no one should have to take.
To mandate or not to mandate?
The debate around providing quality, affordable health care to young adults is usually focused around a mandate or non-mandate approach. If this debate sounds familiar that’s because it is – it’s the key difference between Hillary and Obama’s health care plans.
The non-mandate approach says that we can cover adults simply by making health care more affordable. Obama takes this route, although he doesn’t offer any specific plans for young adults. My current home state of Connecticut has also offered a state-subsidized plan geared at young adults, the Charter Oak Plan, which it will be unveiling soon. The key challenge with this approach is providing a plan that’s cheap enough to encourage young adults to buy it, but at the same time comprehensive enough to help you whenyou actually need help.
The mandate approach, on the other hand, recognizes that not every one will buy insurance even if it’s affordable. Hillary and Edwards take this position, and in addition to offering a reduced cost health plans, their plans require everyone to buy insurance. Given that, as we mentioned earlier, most of us aren’t always thinking about our health, I think that objectively it is a better position for the country as a whole. Affordability is an important factor, however, since people won’t be able to buy insurance if they can’t afford it.
The more ideal option, of course, would to be make coverage in some sort of public health plan automatic and save us all the hassle of sorting through hundreds of different private health plans. Recently on our Roosevelt Institution blog, one of our fellows suggested the idea of, at a minimum, allowing college grads to continue the coverage that they had while they were a student through a COBRA-like program. It sounds so much easier to me, but maybe I’m just dreaming...
Standing up for our health
Indeed, even the most basic health reforms to ensure health care to young adults will be difficult to implement. Congress right now can’t even pass health care for children under 18, so how can it ever start considering the needs of us older kids?
The good thing about being a kid age 18-35 is that we can vote. Young adults are going to be crucial voting bloc in the upcoming election, and it’s time that we make our voices heard.
The Roosevelt Institution, a new, progressive think tank of students across the country, is one of the many organizations working on this issue, and I’m excited to say that I’m going to be organizing a conference in DC on March 14th about this very issue. So, let me know what you think, and I’d love to continue the discussion with many of you.
By Rob Nelb
Senior Fellow, Roosevelt Institution
Kossacks Under 35 is a weekly diary series designed to create a community within DailyKos that focuses on young people. Our overall goals are to work on increasing young voters' Democratic majority, and to raise awareness about issues that particularly affect young people, with a potential eye to policy solutions. Kossacks of all ages are welcome to participate (and do!), but the overall framework of each diary will likely be on or from a younger person's perspective. If you would like more information or want to contribute a diary, please email kath25 at kossacksunder35 (at) gmail dot com