Former President Bill Clinton knows that young people won’t be young forever, and that they should do the “right” and “smart” thing by signing up for Obamacare’s insurance policies now.
At least that’s what he urged them to do during a speech at the Clinton Presidential Center Wednesday morning.
“And I think if young people can afford their coverage, they should buy it and contribute to a well-funded system with lower rates if for no other reason then they will not always be young,” Clinton said.
The 42nd President of the United States cited a study in his speech from the Commonwealth Fund, the private foundation centered around promoting healthcare reform policy, which said that the majority of young people are shying away from health insurance simply because they cannot afford it and not because they think they are invincible. But he also noted that with the tax credits offered by President Obama’s new law, healthcare will become more affordable to Millennials who could buy one of the bronze — or lowest cost — policies.
Not everyone agrees with Clinton’s notion that healthcare for young adults will be more affordable, however. In June The Wall Street Journal reported that the average 25-year-old man will end up paying between 64 percent to 117 percent more for insurance under the Affordable Care Act then with the five cheapest policies sold on the market today.
Clinton also attempted to discredit the idea that not enough Millennials will sign up for health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because they’re already covered by their parents’ plans.
“The assumption that young people don’t buy insurance because they think they don’t need it isn’t backed up by the facts,” he said.
Moreover, if there aren’t enough healthy and uninsured young adults signing up for the healthcare exchanges, then young people with severe preexisting conditions will drive up the cost of insurance policies for everyone – a “legitimate” concern of Clinton’s.
While Clinton failed to come up with a comprehensive healthcare reform policy during his own presidency, the “Secretary of Explaining Stuff” recognized the shortfalls of Obamacare during his policy-laden speech. He still believes that despite the program’s problems the Affordable Care Act was the “best chance” so far for universal healthcare.
He also believes that implementation is the perfect solution for those who are against the costly government program, adding that the only way to fix the law’s flaws is to see it implemented.
“I think we should all work together to implement this law whether we supported its passage or not,” Clinton said.
“It seems to me that the benefits of reform can’t be fully realized and the problems certainly can’t be solved unless both the supporters and the opponents of the original legislation work together to implement it and address the issues that arise whenever you change a system that’s complex,” he added. “There’s always drafting errors, unintended consequences, unanticipated issues. We’re going to do better working together and learning together than we will trying to over and over again to repeal a law by rooting for reform to fail and refusing to fix relatively simple matters.”
After all, as Clinton reminded everyone, it is the law and “I think we’ve all got an interest in trying to faithfully execute the laws. If you get one of these elected jobs, you actually take an oath to do that.”
