In a recent ad from the anti-Obamacare group Generation Opportunity, a young woman who has signed up for the Obamacare is led into a gynecologist’s office and told to wait for the doctor to arrive. Instead of her wholesome family physician, she is greeted by a grinning and incredibly creepy Uncle Sam. The woman screams and the ad tells the viewer to “opt out of Obamacare.” This ad, which became infamous several months ago, is an effort to convince young people that the Affordable Care Act is a terrifying monster that must be avoided at all costs. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Rather than replacing your family doctor with a creepy grinning Uncle Sam, the Affordable Care Act will provide young people with better options for health insurance than ever before.
If you are a student here at the University of Wisconsin, chances are you’re already covered under the Affordable Care Act. That’s because if your parents have health insurance, you will be able to stay on their plan until you are 26-years-old. That gives you time to graduate college, get a job in a career you enjoy and become accustomed to living on your own all before you have to buy health insurance for the first time.
If your parents don’t have health insurance or if you’ve already celebrated your 26th birthday, you’ll be able to sign up for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges. These are basically marketplaces for health insurance where you’ll be able to shop for a plan that suits your needs. Conservatives have claimed that premiums for young people will skyrocket because of the Affordable Care Act. In reality, according to a report by the Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 46 percent of single, uninsured young adults living in states with a federal Obamacare marketplace will be able to purchase basic health insurance plans for less than $50 a month. Approximately two-thirds of people between the ages of 18 and 34 will be able to purchase health insurance for less than $100 a month.
Not only will your insurance likely be cheaper, it will also be of higher quality. Insurance companies will no longer be able to drop you from your plan if you get sick. They will also no longer be allowed to charge women more than men or deny coverage for having a pre-existing condition, which can be something as serious as heart disease or as benign as a previous accidental injury. Birth control coverage will also be mandatory under all plans, a huge benefit for young people across the country.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the ACA is the individual mandate, which requires everyone to buy health insurance. This section of the law has been debated in front of the Supreme Court and is still the least popular part of the ACA. So how exactly does this benefit young people? Unlike other types of insurance like fire insurance or flood insurance, everyone will need health insurance at some point in their lives. We as college students might not have a high risk of getting cancer or heart disease right now, but as we get older, we will need more and more medical care. However, if everyone in the country were to wait till they get old and sick before they buy insurance, then insurance companies would have to raise the cost of insurance incredibly high in order to pay for everyone’s constant medical procedures. Under the individual mandate, young, healthy people will be required to buy health insurance and put money into the system (even if it’s just $50 a month), which allows older, sicker people to get affordable healthcare when they need it most. When all of us college students become older, we’ll benefit from lower costs and more comprehensive care as a result. We pay a little now so we don’t have to pay way more when we’re older and have a higher risk of serious illness.
In the end, the Affordable Care Act is far from the boogeyman that conservatives have tried to make it. Young people will be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance, get low cost coverage from the health insurance exchanges and have more procedures covered. Plus when we’re older, we won’t have to pay huge premiums thanks to the individual mandate. Despite the current controversy surrounding it, in 20 years, the Affordable Care Act will be viewed as one of the most important and beneficial laws in American history, especially for our generation.
