Importance Of Young To ACA’s Success Emphasized
Importance Of Young To ACA’s Success Emphasized.
A handful of outlets carried pieces relating to the importance of young people to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. First, on its front page, the Los Angeles Times (6/3, A1, Gorman) reports that as the launch of the ACA approaches, health leaders nationwide are confronting the difficult task of persuading young adults “to enroll.” Participation of young people “will be critical to balance out older, sicker patients more likely to sign up for health insurance as soon as they are able.” Noting that nearly everyone “will be required to have insurance or face a fine — $95 or 1% of their household income in the first year,” the Times adds that health officials worry the penalty is not high enough “to convince people to sign up for coverage.”
This weekend, the Los Angeles Times (6/1, Zamosky) profiled the new options which will be available to young people under the Affordable Care Act starting next year, including subsidies for buying coverage on the law’s exchanges.
Grace-Marie Turner, President of the Galen Institute, wrote in the New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times (6/2) that young people face “disincentives” to sign up for health insurance under the ACA and opting for the $95 penalty may be “an attractive option” for the young. She says an expected “massive advertising campaign this summer to encourage people to enroll…will severely test [the] young supporters” of President Obama, because they “are having the hardest time finding jobs in our economy. Forcing them to also purchase health insurance – and pay more for it – may cool their enthusiasm to help the President fulfill his legacy.”
From the opposite perspective, Wayne Madsen wrote in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (6/2), “Why would mostly healthy younger Americans pay thousands of dollars more for coverage they don’t need when they can opt out by paying a $95 fine and, if needed, purchase catastrophic insurance for one-tenth the price of ObamaCare coverage?” Madsen says that “if enough younger Americans don’t sign up, Obama’s so-called signature legislation may collapse,” and “if that happens, progressive Democrats should make a strong case for a single-payer system, supported by thriving single-payer systems the world over, including in the full-throttle economies of Canada and Germany.”