Timothy Noah is wrong about the Young Invincibles.

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Remind me again why one people between the ages of 18 and 25 don’t have health insurance? Oh, right, because “they are going to live forever and therefore have no use for doctors.” Or so says Tim Noah in this Slate piece griping about how young people might actually catch a break under Sen. Max Baucus’ newly-revealed reform plan.

Noah joins a chorus of other distinguished voices (Mark Steyn, anyone?) who have claimed—always without evidence, as far as I can tell—that 20-somethings believe they are immortal. Apparently there is middle ground on the subject of health care reform, and it consists of deriding young people for being such careless fools.

Does it not occur to these wise old gentlemen that some uninsured youngsters would very much like to be covered, but the unfortunate realities of our economy make buying coverage practically impossible? Despite Ben Bernanke’s cheery assessment of the recession, job markets are still tight, and graduates are grabbing whatever jobs they can, be they part-time, freelance, or with small companies that don’t offer benefits. Individual coverage is prohibitively expensive for a lot of young people who, when they are booted from their parents’ insurance, often have little in the way of savings and a lot in the way of debt.

Noah complains that Baucus gave a gift to insurance companies by creating an option for a cheap catastrophic-injury plan for young people only. Insurance companies “will see this as a fantastically profitable opportunity to sell health insurance to people who almost never get sick.” But if this sort of plan is a gift to insurance companies, it’s an absolute godsend to young people, who will be able to insure themselves against freak accidents but won’t have to spend a quarter of the rent every month to pay for services they don’t need.

Noah’s right that exempting young people from full coverage will make health insurance more expensive for people over the age of 25. But no one stays under 25. At some point, we’ll all have to start kicking in for full coverage. Then, our own costs will be higher than if the current crop of under-25-year-olds were forced to buy complete coverage. Baucus' plan doesn't insure me forever at the expense of Noah and Steyn. It creates a brief window during which young people can get their financial feet under them and find a full-time gig, without having to worry about getting hit by a $40,000 bill if they get hit by a bus.

Tags: health care, young invincibles

Meredith Simons

Comments

تحميل برامج تحميل برنامج

By: beckham_250 | Sun, 09/20/2009 - 06:58

تحميل برامج تحميل برنامج تحميل برامج نوكيا برامج
تحميل ماسنجر تحميل موبايل موقع دليل مواقع

Thanks.

By: claireific | Fri, 09/18/2009 - 15:27

When I read this article on Slate, all I could think was that Tim Noah had succeeded in making himself sound like a bitter, curmudgeonly horse's ass. And that's saying something, because I've enjoyed his work up until this point. I'm miffed by this sudden young person resentment.

Finally!

By: dcreader | Thu, 09/17/2009 - 14:23

I was so upset when my beloved Slate continued the lie that young people don't want health insurance. No one I have known in college or after graduation believes they are invincible, and many of us have horror stories from our time in unemployment or without benefits. Does Tim Noah remember what it is like to be 25 and broke?

I will say this, though - the cell phone is the last thing to go. When you don't have internet, when you don't have a land line phone, you need prospective employers to be able to contact you (hopefully, to give you a job with health care), and you need to be able to call people to tell them (lie) that you are okay.

Have you met a early 20's person who isn't paying for...

By: jak | Thu, 09/17/2009 - 13:08

My cable bill (internet and tv), which i split with my roommates, is about $40 a month per person. When I was on my own cell plan, it was $50 (now on a family plan, so it's cheaper). Total=$90.

When I lost my health insurance, going on COBRA (that is, keeping the plan I had with my parents) cost roughly $400 a month. Buying individual insurance wasn't much cheaper. When you're unemployed, you don't have that kind of money.

I know a lot of young people who are un- or underemployed who would love to buy health insurance, who are terribly worried that they will get into an accident, who just can't afford it.

However, I don't think catastrophic-only is the best option. Young women want real insurance so they can go to the gynecologist every year, to help cover the costs of birth control, in addition to all the other little health expenses.

exemption from full coverage

By: anonymous | Thu, 09/17/2009 - 09:00

I completely agree with all the other comments about how young folks really do want health insurance but find it prohibitively expensive. However, I have a bit of a problem with the argument that those under 25 only need catastrophic insurance with a high deductible. I'm 28 and luckily still able to be on my mom's fabulous insurance because I'm in grad school. At 27 I was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer, and that insurance basically saved my life, not to mention my finances. The thing is, if I had had only catastrophic insurance with a high deductible I would have been screwed. It probably wouldn't have covered everything I needed, and even a few thousand dollars of deductible payments would have completely bankrupted me. Though I was 27, people under 25 get diagnosed with cancer and other major diseases all the time. The argument that those under 25 only need catastrophic insurance just perpetuates this idea that young people are invincible, even if young folks themselves don't see it that way. I know I wouldn't have been ok with only having catastrophic coverage - I would never have gone in for check ups, or seemingly non-serious illnesses, and likely wouldn't have found out about my cancer until it had progressed much farther.

@ My Two Cents

By: misslkodell | Thu, 09/17/2009 - 08:04

Hi, I live with my mother and pay her $300 in rent each month, I work 60 hours/week for a pittance at 2 jobs, my bills are my car loan, car insurance, cell phone, student loans, perscriptions to deal with my asthma and allergies, which are not cheap($45/monthly) even though I try and get the generic and I have modest(crap) health insurance. I could get insurance through one of my employers but it would eat up 25% of my pay because the group rate sucks and it requires maternity coverage, I opted out of that because I figure I can get a better job soon. I don't have dental but I go for my regular cleanings and pay $125-175 out of pocket for that, praying I don't have any cavities,and its going to cost me $200 next month for my eye exam because I don't have vision included in my insurance and my contact supply ran out. So really, I can't afford to buy my family birthday presents or Christmas presents, and I use freecycle to keep my costs down. Please don't say we pay for cable and internet, if I didn't live with my mom I wouldn't have access to either.

Isn't it a good idea to make

By: buggie | Wed, 09/16/2009 - 23:40

Isn't it a good idea to make sure 20-something get preventative care? Won't that lead to lower costs for everyone in the end? It seems to me that, especially for women, the 20s are time of life that can make you or break you health-wise. I didn't even realize my chronic health conditions (which aren't life-or-death, but they do affect my day to day living in serious ways) until my 20s, when things started coming together and I started understanding my health and body more. Luckily I had health insurance through most of my 20s. But entering my 30s, I lost my job for a while, and COBRA was incredibly expensive. But I needed it. Young people still have problems, but student loan payments and ridiculously low salaries prevent them from getting treatment.

Amazing

By: geml | Wed, 09/16/2009 - 22:34

Last I checked, people often don't have tax free health care savings accounts when they don't have regular and steady employment with a payroll department. To get this, you have to have, you know, a JOB.

yeh...

By: sphynx | Wed, 09/16/2009 - 19:57

the whole line of thinking ticks me off...i was lucky to get a job right out of college that afforded me the luxury of full benefits...i moved and then landed in the same position that most people up here have mentioned..and while some commenters above are on their high horse about young people too busy paying for cable and internet...my boyfriend and i (who both of us come from staunchly middle class homes and both graduated from universities) lived in a $400/month studio apartment in the worst part of town that offered free cable (by mistake because it was not included in rent) and no internet. We used the library if we needed an internet connection (which was frequent because we were both trying to secure better jobs). neither one of us could BEGIN to afford health insurance as we were struggling to pay our student loans, car payments, our cell phone bill, and our maximum of $100 every two weeks in groceries. so health insurance wasn't an option at all as it would have been a luxury that we would have (and did) put behind having more groceries in the house.

@My Two Cents

By: LaceyJo | Wed, 09/16/2009 - 19:19

"Have you met a early 20's person who isn't paying for internet, cell phone, and cable TV?"

*raises hand* Ummm . . . me. I am 25 years old, and the only bills I have in my name are my cell phone bill (300 minutes and 500 texts a month to keep costs down) and my student loan bill. I haven't had cable since I graduated from college three years ago. During the times when I've lived somewhere that didn't have free internet access, I was fortunate enough to have friends who let me use theirs.

My husband and I relocated in January because the cost of living where we were was eating us alive. We got married in April, he was able to find a job quickly, but I've been looking now for eight and a half months. He works full time, and does qualify for benefits, but if we were to sign up for them there wouldn't be enough money left in his paycheck to pay for things like rent, utilities, groceries, and car maintenance/insurance so he can keep going to his job. So we're holding out for now, hoping I can find something soon so we can get the insurance, and every day thanking God that my birth control is only $9 a month. My husband is still on his family's cell phone family plan because it's cheaper that way then for us to combine ours into a new plan. We were lucky enough to find an apartment with free internet, and our only "non-essential" bill is one credit card, which we've had to use a few times . . . to buy groceries.

Before you make such generalizing statements, get your facts right. Not everyone in their 20s is whining about grown-up expenses. Some of us REALLY can't afford it.

23-Year-Olds Aren't Delusional, They're Poor