The Saeculum Decoded
A Blog by Neil Howe

Will Health Reform Hammer Millennials?

 Baby Boomer, Generation X, Generations, Millennial, Politics  Add comments
Nov 272009
 

Bob Samuelson’s update on how Health ‘Reform’ That Burdens Our Young. One big question will be whether the House formula triumphs (up to a 2-to-1 difference), which will mandate a huge transfer from young adults, or whether the Senate formula wins out (up to a 4-to-1 difference).

This is the provision btw that won over AARP’s hearty endorsement of “reform,” despite the fact that the plans will pull much of the subsidy away from the “advantage” plans enjoyed by a growing number of Medicare recipients. AARP clearly sees that the “advantage” subsidy is small potatoes compared to this windfall for Boomer (born 1943-1960) who will soon be AARP members.

Samuelson asks a good question: When will AARP back community rating for auto insurance?

At last count the official unfunded liabilities for Social Security and all parts (A-D) of Medicare is roughly $100 trillion. So who’s even going to count the extra nickels and dimes we borrow to fill the Part D doughnut hole? And the fiscal stimulus keeps the economy moving and the Fed is handing out free (zero-interest) money. For me, this is certainly the most interesting and unanticipated fiscal, economic, and political environment I have ever seen in my life. For much of the country, there is tremendous unease that the vaunted “courage” of our national leaders always seems to result in borrowing from our kids, keeping our benefits up and our taxes low, and kicking most of the painful choices (“health care reform”) down the road. What happens when the music stops?

Many informed Millennial (born 1982-200?) will want to ask why — after all their struggles to find jobs, the higher tuitions, the extra debt, and the open faucet on federal debt that they will have to pay back—they also need to pay a new hidden tax to benefit Boomer (born 1943-1960) nearing retirement. Millennials like to be regarded as more civic minded. But I don’t think they like to have a “kick me” sign attached to their backs. If this goes through, some national leader is going to discover this issue and push it in ways that could get ugly. One could, for example, see low-income, go-bare Millennials heavily featured in the Tenth Amendment challenges that will inevitably occur on the mandate. I’m not looking forward to any of this.

Be Sociable, Share!
  • http://www.growyourcomfortzone.com Ed Wheeler

    I think that the situation is going to be compounded by the relative population size of the Boomer and Millennial generations

    As the Millennial generation starts to become more of a political age, I think we're likely to see the first rise of a generational voting block that could compete with the Baby Boomers, which in the past has been able to overwhelm the Silent and X Generations based on sheer population size.

  • http://www.isaiahjanzen.com Isaiah Janzen

    Neither am I! I think most of us do feel like we get the short end of the stick once we turn 18. We seem to get hit with fees, like a new tax to fund baby boomers, more than anyone before. Who knows maybe we will actually sort out the healthcare system some day.

    I just finished an ebook about Generation Y that you might find interesting: http://www.isaiahjanzen.com/2009/11/free-ebook-wh…

  • http://www.isaiahjanzen.com/ Isaiah Janzen

    Neither am I! I think most of us do feel like we get the short end of the stick once we turn 18. We seem to get hit with fees, like a new tax to fund baby boomers, more than anyone before. Who knows maybe we will actually sort out the healthcare system some day.

    I just finished an ebook about Generation Y that you might find interesting: http://www.isaiahjanzen.com/2009/11/free-ebook-wh…

  • http://millennialkelly.blogspot.com Kelly85

    This plan to burden the young adults in order to benefit the old appears to be an example of postseasonal behavior to me. Remember how in 13th Gen Strauss and Howe talked about how Generation X seemed to get the bad end of the stick generationally while the old folks of the time (the G.I.s) got the goodies (e.g. large Social Security benefits and "senior citizen discounts" for the latter while the former was burdened with high taxes to pay for those Social Security benefits which many Xers thought they would never get to see themselves).

    Today's rising adults aren't Xers, they're Millennials. Unlike Xers which tend to go on with the system even if it works to their disadvantage, Millennials (being more civic-oriented) will likely take action if they feel they're being disadvantaged. Such action may include voting out the politicians who voted for the health care bill and/or challenging the bill in court. Maybe this will cause politicians to learn the hard way that Millennials aren't just an extension of Generation X.

  • Richardboomer

    “So we also need to revise the contract between the generations in a way that gradually reallocates resources from the more affluent elderly to struggling younger families and their children. Such a shift would not only help create more opportunity, it would improve the productivity of the next generation, making its members better able to contribute to the costs of retirement — including their own. “

    5 myths about our land of opportunity
    By Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins, Sunday, November 1, 2009
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…

  • rockymeet

    This is a great post and gives some really good tips. Register to comment is absolutely bad practice. I’ve got some new ideas like occasionally emailing my readers and the question titles. I think I also have to improve the comment field design to make it more visually appealing. And make my RSS subscriber link more visible.
    health insurance

    Thanks for this great post.

  • sandyxxx

    This is my first comment but I feel like I should have been making loads of comments now because I always like your stuff. Maybe comments are for more hit and miss blogs than your own. When you maintain a consistent level of high quality output I reckon people are less inclined to comment because they have come to expect it from you. Just a theory.

    great deals–

  • http://twitter.com/manishfusion manish fusion

    Never really occurred to me to leave a comment on the designboom weblog.. i mean sure, i read you guys everyday, but the posts i find interesting i fave or bookmark or share the url to others, rather than clicking the comment link.
    Health insurance

  • son_risa

    on another forum discussing the health care disaster, one commenter lamented that if this mess passes, singler payor Medicare for all will be dead for the next 20 years. I couldn't help but notice how well that comment fits in with S&H's generational blueprint. Consider- by 2030 ALL the Boomers-whether you cut them off at 1960, or include 1961 to 64 bulge- will be on Medicare. Mellennials will be dominating Congress, & like the GI congresses of the 1950's & 60's, who passed legislation that primarily beneitted GI's, Millennials will be passing legislation that primarily benefits Millennials. Doubtless this will include single payor healthcare. The big losers of course are the non-bulge Gen Xer's (ie Gen Xers by everyone's standards) who scrimped & saved their entire adult lives, who did without healthcare, or did without other things to pay for healthcare, who discover, as they become old enough for Medicare, that the Medicare doors have been flung wide open to include everybody in this country, regardless of age. This scenario falls so neatly into the Generations model that it would not surprise me one bit if this is what will eventually happen.

   
© 2012 Lifecourse Associates Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha