What’s in it for you? Are you benefiting from the President’s rhetoric about the right thing to do? You arguably provided the necessary votes that put the President in office. You arguably can influence your state and local elections.
While the mean-spirited Republicans and their meaningless rhetoric and faulty economic ideas promise Obama victory and your vote, the fact that the President is not worse than the Republican candidate does not excuse his inattention to US citizen young people.
What has the President done for you? Yes, your parents can keep you on their insurance plans until you’re 26 and yes, you’ll likely be able to borrow money to stay out of the job market by going to school at lower interest rates, neither of which is a direct path to independent living.
Yesterday the next shot at young people was put forth by the Supreme Court which declared the health mandate a legal tax in addition to declaring unconstitutional the Affordable Care Act’s attempt to expand Medicaid coverage to include non-elderly adults without children who are living at up to 133 percent of the Federal poverty level.
In accordance with the new mean-ing of America, naturally democrats declared victory, Republicans declared they’d still fight against Obamacare and not ONE word of attention to the persistent crippling of our next generation was addressed.
The Supreme Court found the Medicaid expansion provision unconstitutional because it jeopardized all Federal funding for state Medicaid programs that did not implement an expansion of coverage and naturally the Supreme Court was not prepared to see what happens when Medicaid funding is removed from states.
For young people voting remains the best opportunity to get your voices heard. Voting at the state level will be critical in terms of expanded Medicaid coverage since states will have the opportunity to receive additional federal funding IF they expand Medicaid coverage.
There are many places to find out about your state policies regarding Medicaid eligibility and coverage including at a Kaiser Family site titled “Statehealthfacts.org”, “State Medicaid Fact Sheet,” (http://www.statehealthfacts.org/medicaid.jsp ).
If you’re young your vote became more important in the face of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision that says YES you can be taxed if you don’t purchase health insurance and NO if you are a non-parent, low-income adult you will not be able to count on being eligible for Medicaid.
