A Daily Mail editorial from the Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Though many aspects of Obamacare have drawn criticism since it was signed into law in 2010, one often gets overlooked.
The president’s health care plan relies largely on young Americans to make health insurance cheaper for older generations. Americans under the age of 34 pay higher premiums on health care exchange plans than their parents even though they generally are less reliant on health insurance.
As Dave Barnes, policy director of Generation Opportunity, wrote for the Wall Street Journal, health insurance companies selling plans on the exchanges need young Americans to pay those higher premiums without using much medical care in an effort to keep overall costs down.
But the plans offered to young adults on the exchanges often come with high deductibles they may never reach.
Because of that, many young adults who don’t have employer-sponsored health care plans have opted to remain uninsured. As Barnes writes, the percentage of Obamacare enrollees younger than 34 has held steady at 28 percent since the law’s full implementation three years ago.
Sixteen percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 have opted out of the exchange — a figure 71 percent higher than the uninsured rate for 45- to 65-year-olds.
Because fewer young adults are signing up, insurers continue to raise premiums on everyone, and more than 40 companies have pulled out of the exchange.
In response, the White House is working to encourage young Americans to sign up for Obamacare. Last week the president hosted the Millennial Outreach and Engagement Summit as an effort to kickstart a new campaign aimed at young people.
The Obama Administration also announced earlier this summer a plan to use private tax data to identify young Americans who have not signed up on the exchanges.
But, as Barnes writes, these plans likely won’t work. “Young Americans are avoiding Obamacare because it isn’t a good deal for us.”
And it’s easy to understand why. Many young adults graduate college today with a heap of student loan debt and are starting their careers in a recovering economy. They simply don’t have the income to pay so much in health care premiums and other costs for coverage they’re not likely to use.
“Young Americans aren’t looking for ‘outreach’ and ‘engagement’ from President Obama,” Barnes writes. “We’re looking for affordable health insurance plans — and Obamacare doesn’t offer them.”