Just for a moment, as the new benefits season approaches, it’s time for parents, lawmakers, health care providers, insurers, employers to consider whether our policies that are so “metric-driven” and “study-driven” both euphemisms for MONEY driven really make sense in terms of the America of tomorrow.
While each person grabs at allegedly scarce resources, the most obvious cost to America is that it is NO LONGER considered a land of opportunity by many of our young citizens.
This isn’t cynicism, though certainly some grumbling imbecile who’s collecting Social Security and Medicare and likely a pension will stupidly respond “America love it or leave it.” (Remember, pensions, Social Security and Medicare are all likely to be barely available to our young people of today.}
No, it’s not cynicism. It’s what policies focused on money have done to the self-confidence and expectations of a young population that for many years has been referred to as “slackers,” “inadequately prepared,” and unable to choose for itself whether or not to purchase health insurance without facing a fine.
An occasional, “We can do it,” by a President who has so flagrantly supported policies that cannibalize young adults to fulfill his own agenda has only worsened the disconnect.
Here is one young adult’s comment on choosing benefits this benefits season: Isn’t health insurance betting against yourself?
It was a question that hasn’t come up very often as policymakers and insurance companies openly connived their way into requiring young people to have insurance or face a fine.
It’s a question that should make the healthcare industry pause because it’s at least partially connected to the new comfort and ease with which governments and healthcare providers and insurers blatantly discuss their money concerns and how they’re willing to do anything for a buck from roping in young Americans as profitable because they’re healthier to penalizing them for not buying insurance, to providers justifying charging them exorbitant fees for any healthcare service or threatening not to take forms of insurance because their profit-goals aren’t being met, making health care services largely inaccessible to our underpaid young people EVEN IF they have insurance.
Obamacare has worsened the disrespect. Obama flapped his arms in self-congratulation at making it possible for parents to pay for their children’s health insurance without any apology for the fact that our economy has made health insurance unaffordable to so many young people who are unemployed or under-employed that the government decided to infantilize them by making them dependent on their parents even longer.
Obamacare has focused on young people as a revenue source to the degree that their HEALTH is treated as a second thought, a far distant other reason after discussions of money and how governments, insurers and providers are getting rich off young people's healthiness.
Obamacare has marketed health insurance to young people joking about how stupid and careless they are. Consider some of the more obnoxious ads produced at the expense of the American taxpayer by looking up some of the “Got Insurance?” ads. Most of them make fun of young people as beer-chugging, sex-having idiots who are crazy for not having health insurance.
So, ISN’T HEALTH INSURANCE BETTING AGAINST YOURSELF? That’s what’s coming across to at least some of our American young people.
We’ve been horrible to our young people. We’ve called them slackers. We’ve made fun of the fact that in today’s economic shambles their US educations are inadequate to obtain livable wages. We’ve listened to companies run by people who in many cases have LESS education than our young people explain why they get “top talent” from abroad.
We penalize our young people for youthful non-violent offenses including drug crimes and others when our last three Presidents have admitted to the same or similar poor choices but were lucky enough not to live in an age where such choices prevented them from becoming Presidents. Further we forgive the violations of law by illegal alien young people through policies of amnesty that ignore the use of false IDs, lies on job applications and any number of offenses that are forgiven in adults who knew better but continued the illegal conduct of their parents.
We’ve taken away job security as they watch their older parents get tossed aside or have their retirements subjected to cost savings or their decades of Medicare payments force them to continue to work way beyond the age of traditional retirements.
While providers and insurers and the government whine about how much more money they need with a strong focus on young people as revenue, young adults realize that even WITH insurance going into a dentist’s office or a provider may be unaffordable. Young adults listen to out-of-pocket maximums that in many cases exceed what they’re taking home in pay. Aside from wanting to avoid the no health insurance TAX, there is little benefit to young people from insurance plans as the new age of money first, health second continues to wind its way through our economy.
For young people, I STILL believe you should obtain health insurance through whatever means available because whether or not older Americans admit it, you ARE the future.
MY TAKE REGARDING INSURANCE AS BETTING AGAINST YOURSELF: Naturally, I’ll first say that I believe that young people should sign up for health insurance whether through Medicaid, their parents’ policies, through their jobs, or having their family members help pay for a policy first because it will give your family members piece of mind, so it’s a kind thing to do and secondly to avoid the tax (which admittedly is small).
I also believe there is NO SHAME in asking someone to help you pay for your health insurance policy if you are unemployed and over 26, it actually is betting ON yourself that you will find employment and you deserve as much as anyone to have any piece of mind such policy can offer you.
It’s TRUE. Insurance IS betting against things going along smoothly, whatever type of insurance it is. After all, it’s supposed to be the payment of a premium in exchange for the agreement by an insurance company to help pay the costs of something unexpected and expensive that might happen during the policy period. If things go well, premium money stays with the insurer, money spent that basically gets you nothing.
There’s also the fact that because of the mess of Obamacare, services you might have been able to afford before out of pocket like a physical or a checkup (certainly such activities were cheaper than a year’s worth of premiums) will likely be UNAFFORDABLE today if you want to pay cash. When items are covered by insurance, their cost usually goes up, so without insurance they are unaffordable.
There are a lot of discussions of rising charges for services, one article that’s very readable is Elisabeth Rosenthal’s article of 1/18/2014, “Patients’ Costs Skyrocket; Specialists’ Income Soar,” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/health/patients-costs-skyrocket-specialists-incomes-soar.html. Obamacare did nothing that will halt the trend for providers charging more and more.
Finally, betting on yourself means using your knowledge to improve your options and lifestyle. Opting out of today’s environment will only leave you in the dark about the direction things are going. By opting in, you’re part of the discussion and you can use your gained wisdom to vote in your own best interests or to continue to ask meaningful questions, or simply to elevate the respect with which you’re treated in advertisements designed to appeal to the importance of your health.
For America, it's time to LISTEN to the younger adults taking their place in American society and perhaps the place to start is by treating them with respect beginning with this benefits season’s advertisements for them to sign up where the message should be…Your health, your future, protect it and then backing those ads up with meaningful actions on behalf of young American citizens.
