‘Young Invincibles’ Need Saving, Too
Posted by meredith on 10-15-2009
The big news out of Washington this week was health care reform gaining its first Republican supporter in Maine Senator Olympia Snowe. What’s more explicitly relevant to youth, was the announcement made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi that a provision would be added to the legislation to allow young people to remain on their parents’ insurance through the age of 26.
As a recent college grad, I’ve known more than a few twentysomethings who have faced being uninsured or under insured and can speak to the relief this measure brings. Since the downturn hit last January, it’s been painful (sometimes literally) to watch friends deal with the stress of that indefinite period of time before finding a job or going back to school, further compounded by the dilemma over what to do about their health care situation. A few cases who were living at home even became technical (read non-working) employees of their parents’ businesses. Others felt they had no choice but to risk not having a plan at all. With jobs scarce (and jobs that provided coverage even scarcer), student debts high and no affordable individual coverage option, there seemed to be no other choice besides for fraud or vulnerability.
It doesn’t exactly paint the largest population of uninsured Americans in a light of invincibility, which is probably why that characterization has never sat so well with me. For all the rhetoric around Millennials’ fearlessness towards falling ill or getting into an accident, in the circles I travel it’s always appeared more like a very strong breed of wishful thinking. A hope that can be slightly rationalized since those incidents do seem less likely given our age, but are actually based on the much sadder reality that it would just be incredibly inconvenient and unaffordable if something were to happen. Unfortunately sometimes this train of thought also leads to some unwise decisions, whether it be self-diagnosis over the web or even turning away an ambulance after getting hit by a car (as a bike messenger friend of mine experienced.) These aren’t proud moments for Gen Y’ers, as much as pragmatic solutions to get by in the moment.
In that same vein, I wonder how much of college students’ indecisiveness towards universal health care and reform in general, is misunderstood as apathy, when in actuality “health-care-related” anxiety is just filed away under the overarching post-graduation concern of “what now?” When I think back to my own senior year (before the downturn) I can only recall a vague awareness of the circumstances and consequences of not having health insurance, but not because health care seemed unimportant. Just secondary to finding a job that ideally would come with coverage. Part of the difficulty in prioritizing the issue of health care and separating it from the job hunt, may also be because so few are responsible for supporting themselves. According to the September Ypulse Report (available now) only one in 10 college students were paying for their own coverage.
All of this is to say young adults ARE in sore need of the type of sustainable, safe solution that the prolonged coverage provision brings. And we know it… just not so much in the context of the debate as in those real-life circumstances. That’s why the key to communicating (and understanding) the debate on our terms, is to promote a message that makes them one and the same.
For more campus coverage, visit the Ypulse Campus Channel, sponsored by Campus Media Group.
Categorized under: Collegians
October 15th, 2009 at 11:40 am
If Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) had voted “No” in committee, then Democrats would accept that they can’t get her vote on the floor, and they would put together a good bill.
Because she voted “Yes,” the Senate will probably put together a lousy bill to get her vote.