health insurance reform

• Gotta love it when you make news calling out Ted Nugent. That's right, Stephen Colbert picked Kevin's hit on that old guy who wondered why we weren't joining the Tea Party. Go Future Majority!
• Durbin's DREAM Act hearing bring in cabinet heads, 200 young people
  

  "Durbin secured an especially large hearing room with some 200 student supporters expected.

  "These are young people who have that kind of exciting look in their eyes that they want to be part of the world," Durbin said on the Senate floor last week.

  "But they can't make that first move toward the life that they want to live because they are undocumented," he said."

• Youth triumphs again in LPGA event so take that! Still doesn't mean I know anything about golf though….
• Private student loans get bankruptcy protection with proposed legislation
• The Maine League of Young Voters video on Health Insurance
  
• Fitting Gen Y into your marketing plan And later today you'll hear details on just how to do that with Part 1 of my analysis of the millennial marketing data from the new mega-research project to be released this September.
• Lessons from NY State
  

  "These changes won’t likely reverse anytime soon. As the Public Religion Research Institute found, the millennial generation — the more diverse, tolerant generation that will lead our country — support same-sex marriage by 57 percent, consistent with a recent Pew study showing that 64 percent of millennials are supportive, versus 46 percent of Generation X and 37 percent of baby boomers."

  (Pew takes into account cell phones as I recall. Gay marriage is going to become the norm. People should just get use to it or move.)

• Pretty cool story Arab Spring turns into Entrepreneurial summer - essentially American young business owners and others are meeting up in Egypt to help young business owners there
• Joining the family business after college should be a careful decision - working for your family might be just as miserable as moving back in with them. Or … it could be a great experience. Weigh your options…
• Liberal Alternative to Tea Party Debating War on Drugs etc…
• Maine's war on voting rights and how it affects young people
• Resources for young people who want to run for office

Later today my piece on the top lines of the new Millennial Marketing research project will hit - its a two day post breaking down their data

Today, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) spoke out against one of the Affordable Care Act’s most popular provisions, which allows young adults to stay on their parent’s plan up to age 26. Speaking from the House floor he said “I have four kids under the age of 26. I have raised them to be responsible. The average age of soldiers in Vietnam was 19. World War II probably the same. I have raised my kids to be responsible, to get health care at 21. Kids don't need to be running home to mommy and daddy until they're 26 for healthcare.” The dependent coverage provision is one of the most popular in the health care law, with polls showing as much as 70% of Americans support the provision.

“Jack Kingston and his family have every right to not extend coverage to their children. That’s their choice. But apparently Rep. Kingston thinks his ideas on how to raise children should dictate the health care choices of millions of families and their children. Rep. Kingston should tell the families in Georgia already benefiting from this provision that he knows best when he tries to take coverage away from their kids,” says Aaron Smith, Co-founder and Executive Director of Young Invincibles.

Rep. Kingston may not know that Georgia already had a law extending dependent coverage before the new health care law. The old Georgia state law extended coverage to young adults up to the age of 25, although it was full of restrictions. The law only required a family plan to offer coverage to young adults that were financially dependent and enrolled as full-time students for at least 5 months of the year, or who were eligible to be a full-time student but prevented due to illness or injury. The state law also did not apply to many large employers that were self-insured. The federal law raised the age to 26, removed almost all of these restrictions, and applies to all employers, including self-insurers.

In 2010, 343,000 19-25 year olds were uninsured in Georgia, while the unemployment rate among the same age group in Georgia is a staggering 20%. An estimated 43,500 young Georgians are predicted to benefit from this new federal provision in 2011, at no cost to the federal or state budget, while thousands more will benefit when the exchanges are fully implemented in 2014.

Rep. Kingston’s position is at odds with many other Republicans who have supported dependent coverage. For example, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina recently said “[t]here's some things in there like parents being able to keep their kids on insurance while they're going to school -- that's good stuff."

Young Invincibles has a fact sheet on the impact of the dependent coverage provision in Georgia, among other states. Find it here.

In the wake of the release of the Powerpoint presentation revealing the Republican Party's strategy of fear, a new ad scaring young Americans away from supporting health insurance reform.

One of the big conservative talking points attempting to lure the youth vote is that the current health care bill would include a mandate to purchase health insurance without increasing affordability.

What they fail to mention is that it has been the GOP and a few conservative Democrats that have stripped away those things that would have made insurance more affordable.

It's like someone sold you a bicycle and John Boehner jumps out and smashes it with a hammer, only to say "can you believe that guy sold you a broken bicycle?"

And what are these conservatives who are apparently so concerned about the plight of young Americans doing for us? Shutting down the Senate for 12 hours.

Last week 22-year-old Kimberly Young lost her life because of our broken health care system. She contracted H1N1 flu, a virus that should not be fatal to the young and healthy when treated, yet it took her life because she was uninsured and worried about being able to pay for treatment:

Kimberly became ill about two weeks ago, but didn’t seek care initially because she didn’t have health insurance and was worried about the cost, according to Brent Mowery, her friend and former roommate.

“That’s the most tragic part about it. If she had insurance, she would have gone to the doctor,” Mowery said.

Many politicians and the media seem hell-bent on portraying young Americans as kids who think they are invincible. We may be young, but we know we are not invincible. We have seen our friends severely injured in car accidents, contract illnesses, and get cancer. We have seen sickness. We have seen death. We have seen lives shattered because they are buried in health care debt before those adult lives even began.

We are not being called invincible because we don't think anything can happen to us. We are being called invincible because it helps those who are older than us that deny us health insurance reform rationalize the devastating effect it has on us. Young people don't choose to be uninsured because they think they are invincible, the issue is that health insurance is not accessible to young people at an affordable rate.

Kimberly Young wasn't the first young American to die needlessly in our health insurance morass, and unless real health insurance reform with a public option is passed, she certainly won't be the last.

Last week Rod Snyder, YDA Executive Vice President, and Hailey Snow, YDA Political Director, participated in a meeting at the White House about health care and young Americans.

Two things became clear. First, our generation is at the most risk of being uninsured without health insurance reform, and second, that passing a bill that provides quality affordable health care to all Americans will require Millennials to take action supporting it.

The Young Democrats of America launched yda.org/healthpledge, where young Americans from across the country can pledge to take action in support of health insurance reform. Once someone signs the pledge, they are redirected to a page where they can take one or more of the following actions:

• Write a letter to a local paper
• Write to your Senators
• Call your Senators
• Attend a town hall meeting
• Call in to talk radio
• Make a donation

Everyone that signs the pledge by Wednesday night will be invited to participate on YDA’s Health Insurance Reform update conference call with Democratic leaders and elected officials.

YDA Blog - Our Visit to the White House to Talk About Health Care
YDA Blog - Pledge to Fight for Health Insurance Reform