Conservatives are lining up some fine arguments against the strange health care beast being shepherded through Congress this season. Oddly, however, as the public as a whole turns against the Obama Administration on health care and other issues, the critics have neglected the young adult constituency that voted 66 percent for Mr. Obama last fall and are the least engaged now in the health care debate.
Move them and you will move the debate substantially. So far, the critics are not making the effort. They attack rationing, Medicate cuts that threaten seniors, lack of controls on tort excesses and much else. But they don't address the interest of the young.
Yet there is every reason that young voters should be anxious about the health care bill that recently passed the House, as well as the bills under consideration in the Senate. They stand to lose a bundle.
Among other things, as papers from CATO (libertarian) and the Urban Institute (liberal) make clear, the House bill provides for "community rating" that will prohibit insurance companies from offering young people--who are almost always "low risk" so far as health is concerned-- commensurately lower rates for health insurance. It doesn't matter whether their health now is good, whether they eat right and don't smoke and exercise regularly. Effectively, young people--unless they are poor and therefore subsidized--will see the price of health insurance skyrocket.
Moreover (here's the kicker), under the "individual mandate" they will find they must buy such insurance. The new law requires it. They can even go to jail if they don't.
In short, young people are going to be forced for the first time to have health insurance and, and unless they are the subsidized poor, they are going to pay through the nose for it. How popular can that be?
Popular enough, so long as the young people involved don't know about it until it is too late. As is, young adults tend to think health care "reform" is just apple pie and Mom, something all good people should support. They haven't bothered to learn about it. And no one is telling them. For example, if the Republican National Committee has any significant outreach to college students and other young adults on this topic, it is keeping the message secret.
Again: the highest level of support remaining for the Obama Administration and its health care bill(s) are young voters. If they desert, the bill's base will be greatly weakened. So, why are they not being educated about the bill by its critics?
