health insurance out of reach, a generation braces itself for the worst

[G_j]

http://www.villagevoice.com/print/issues/0428/pyne.php

features

Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young
by Solana Pyne

One Sick Fall

With health insurance out of reach, a generation braces itself for the worst

July 13th, 2004 11:30 AM

If they're not outright poor as a class, young adults in this country are at least very, very broke. The average collegian graduates with more than $20,000 in debt, headed for a job market where real hourly wages have kept pace with neither inflation nor the cost of living. Young adults are broke in part because of their unprecedented schooling—in the latest census figures, 28 percent of those between 25 and 29 reported holding a bachelor's degree—which promised to pluck them away from the constellation of problems plaguing America's underclass, whether it was trouble with housing or inadequate medical care.

Yet there they are, these latest inheritors of the American dream, lined up in emergency rooms for toothaches and the flu, not because they're having emergencies, but because they don't have health insurance, and emergency rooms, unlike private doctors, are obliged to give them care. Since 1987, the number of uninsured young adults has grown at twice the rate of older adults, even though the demographic itself is shrinking. One-quarter to one-third of adults under 35 went without insurance for all of 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available—an increase of 1.2 million from the year before. Half were uninsured for some part of 2002. Of the 43.6 million uninsured adults in the U.S., 41 percent are young.

Of all the rationales John Kerry and George Bush will give this year as they stump for their individual visions of helping the nation's uninsured, one of the most pragmatic is that those little plastic cards can make the difference, for a crucial group of consumers, between having a financial parachute and cratering into debt.

Maria Davidson, of Meriden, Connecticut, was 26 and working for low pay with no benefits when her seven-year-old son tried to kill himself. The ambulance took him to Yale-New Haven Hospital. She had no private coverage for herself and her family. Her children were not eligible for public plans, and she wasn't aware of programs that could have covered the hospital expenses. Her son amassed $3,900 in bills that Davidson just couldn't pay. That was nine years ago. By the time the bill was resolved as the result of a lawsuit, she owed, with interest, over $6,000. Collection agencies were garnishing her wages and had put a lien on her condo.

..more..

[wurzel]

1. She had a condo?? There you go then.

I don't see how she can expect to have a roof over her head and have medical coverage. She chose a low paying job with no benefits. She chose not to be homeless. She chose to take her injured son to hospital. She chose to run up $3900.00 in bills. We have to make choices in this country. That is what this country is all about. It is a question of VALUES.

[Bridget Burke]

2. Please, explain these "values" in detail.

Your president is using that word as he campaigns to be elected. (No, I won't say "re-elected".)

Hurry, as you may not be here long.

[G_j]

3. I think the poster was being sarcastic

at least I HOPE so!

[bemildred]

4. Clearly. nt

[wurzel]

6. You couldn't be more right.

The box I see young people in today makes my blood boil. When we have working people with the kind of "choices" this lady has we have an economic system that does not work. I don't care how wealthy or "free" the "economy" is. A system that brings us a Ms. Davidson and a Mr. Lay is in need of a radical change of values.

[G_j]

9. It's strange

RW talking points are so sick and over the edge. Yet because we hear these points being made in complete seriousness by people, we sometimes miss the satire when they are being lampooned.

[The Zanti Regent]

7. Insensitive

My mother did NOT choose to be crippled in a car accident when she was 49.

My mother did NOT choose to wind up brain damaged.

My mother did NOT choose to be ineligible for Social Security becasue she was a housewife.

My mother did NOT choose to be confined to a nursing home for the last 20 years of her life.

My mother did NOT choose to run out Dad's lifetime Blue Cross limit of $250,000.

My mother did NOT choose for me to bust my IRA to pay for brain surgery she needed to live.

I HAD to give up any chance of a family, owning a car or house to pay her bills.

Take your choices and stick em where the sun don't shine!

[Skittles]

8. Zanti

bless your heart

[skippysmom]

5. Really interesting series on the under 35s

God, we are so screwed.