Young voices silent on health care
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/HEALTH/02/24/healthmag.cranky.doctor/art.doctors.circle.gi.jpg]
Erica Williams
Special to CNN
As Congress returns to Capitol Hill, back from a recess of contentious town halls on health care reform, one new voice has the potential to break through the seemingly endless deadlock: the voice of young Americans.
Just Thursday, there were more than 880,000 Facebook status updates posted with the meme of a demand for health care reform, generated organically and spread virally from young people and other Facebook users across the country.
Some are regarding this as the first symbolic demonstration of young people's engagement in the debate despite the common, and categorically false, notion that young people "don't care about health care reform."
Young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 represent nearly a third of the entire uninsured population, and two-thirds of those uninsured young people reported going without necessary medical care because of costs in 2007, according to research for the Commonwealth Fund.
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Filed under: Health Care |
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Why wouldn't the young people want free health care? Those who have paid into Medicare and Social Security all their lives would like what belongs to them too.
My older children who are still in college are still on my health insurance; of the grown ones only 1 has health insurance through her work. The other two just don't think about it – and that is why I'm not surprised to see young people massing around this issue. They don't they need it and would rather spend their money on food, ec. And besides Mom will help out. I just think young adults are so caught up with living heir own lives right now that they don't think there really is a need for them to have health insurance!