Obamacare appears to be circling the drain. All the things that were predicted are coming to pass. Copays and premiums are rising and insurers are bailing out of the market. Obamacare depended, always, on young, healthy people enrolling. They would need less care so their premiums could be used pay the medical bills of older enrollees. But the young people aren’t signing up, as David Barnes writes in the Wall Street Journal. The White House’s response, naturally, is to conduct:
a Millennial Outreach and Engagement Summit focused on the Affordable Care Act at the White House on Tuesday.
The goal of which, as President Obama wrote in a letter to the remaining insurers, is:
‘to enroll more youth in the Marketplace’ this fall. The administration is also taking its message to social media—using the condescending hashtag #HealthyAdulting—and pandering to us by signing up private companies and celebrities to push its message.
But there is a problem that can’t be solved merely by employing celebrity pitchmen and flooding Twitter, as Barnes observes:
Obamacare is plainly unaffordable for many young Americans. We’re at the start of our careers—and the bottom of the income ladder—so paying so much for something we likely won’t use makes little sense. The IRS penalty of $695 or 2.5% of our income is often cheap by comparison. We may be young, but we can do the math.
