By Ron Meyer, Young America’s Foundation, EXCLUSIVE FOR FOX NATION
Since when did eternal childhood become cool?
Well, that’s what the Obama administration and their allies in higher education are pitching to young people. This week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to college and university presidents asking for help with promoting ObamaCare to their students and alumni. Specifically, the administration wants America’s youth to know that, “[M]any young adults will be eligible to remain on their parent’s health plan until their 26th birthday.”
I have a message to my peers under 26: Just say no. Despite what your liberal universities and the government may tell you, ObamaCare is the most anti-youth law in recent history.
Not only does the law encourage us to remain dependent on our parents, it discriminates against young people. To subsidize the high costs for those nearing retirement, ObamaCare price controls require those under 30 to pay 35 to 45 percent more for their insurance premiums. Any young people previously choosing to self-insure must also now buy these expensive plans.
Currently, it costs those nearing retirement five times more (5:1) on average for health insurance premiums than it does for those under 30. ObamaCare requires young people to pay higher premiums so that the average ratio is only three times more (3:1). Plus, most of the more affordable catastrophic coverage plans usually held by young people are banned under the minimum coverage provisions of the law.
Whoever is purchasing a young person’s premium—be it their employer, their educator, their parent, or themself—will pay nearly 50 percent more for insurance. For young people, this means: less money, lower wages, higher tuition, angry parents, or all of the above.
From an employer’s standpoint, these added costs make hiring a young person even harder and more expensive, directing more young adults back to their parents’ basements. One out of every two new college graduates are already unemployed or underemployed, and 42 percent of college grads under 30 have moved back home. ObamaCare will only make it worse for Generation “Why Us?”.
Read the full piece: http://nation.foxnews.com/obamacare/2012/05/24/opinion-obamacare-keeps-young-people-growing#ixzz1vp83gtg0
