Maryland Democrats’ New Healthcare Bill Makes Insurers Rich: Leaves Millennials in the Lurch

On January 9, a new bill was announced that would uphold the Affordable Care Act’s insurance mandate, imposing penalties on uninsured Marylanders who do not purchase insurance through the Maryland Healthcare Marketplace. Under this legislation, Marylanders who pay the $700 fine and who would qualify for subsidies would be automatically enrolled into a plan, while the rest would be able to use that money as a down payment towards the purchase of a plan on the marketplace.

With many sources of healthcare funding under attack by the current presidential administration, proponents of the bill argue that there’s no alternative: enforce the mandate or watch the healthcare marketplace fail.

But at a time when it is clearer than ever that National Improved Medicare for All is the only viable solution to our healthcare crisis, the bill carries the message that Maryland Democrats are too cozy with the insurance industry.

We are repeatedly told that the reason why our healthcare system isn’t working is because healthy young people aren’t buying insurance. In order to see savings in the future and to curb health care costs for everyone else, the argument goes, young people need to be nudged by the mandate to pay up.

The trouble with this argument is that the reason why millennials aren’t buying health insurance has nothing to do with selfishness and everything to do with economics. While wages have stagnated for decades, living costs have skyrocketed. In 2016, more young people lived with a parent than a spouse. In 1976, 14.7% of 18-34s were living with their parents. In 2016, the number was 22.9%. This is according to U.S. census data: a study by real estate company Trulia two years ago gave a much higher estimate of 40%.

Millennials are tired of being called selfish. We’re told that our inability to buy a house is because we are buying avocado toast – not because housing prices are up. We’re called lazy and unambitious at a time when the challenges of setting up a successful new business have never been so difficult. We’re criticized for favoring bike lanes and public transit over parking lots and sprawl at a time when spending almost $9,000 a year on a car just isn’t an option.

At the same time, we hear stories about our parents, who paid their way through college by waitressing, who were able to buy houses, who had the security of being able to work for the same employer for decades.

We are a generation that is being asked to pay more for less – and the mandate reflects that reality.

In the infancy of the new marketplace, it was hoped that premiums would be reasonably priced. That is not the case now, and with all but two insurers having pulled out of the MD Healthcare Connection, it is hardly a market at all. When your finances are scarce, none of the options given to you by old version of the mandate look attractive.

Do you spend $200 a month on a plan with a $5,000 deductible, $500 month on a platinum plan and stay with your parents another year, or do you pay $700 for no coverage at all? The mandate is supposed to lessen the imbalance between healthy and sick Americans paying into the system. In practice, it doesn’t do much for low-to-middle income people ($25k-$50k annual income), who are more likely to pay the penalty than any other group.

If you are struggling to pay your bills already, having the option of redirecting the $700 that you already couldn’t afford towards the purchase of an insurance plan that you still can’t afford is not going to feel like a lifeline.

I don’t believe in the “baby boomers screwed millennials” narrative. But if the Democrats decide to pursue the mandate as their political goal in 2018, it will exacerbate an “us vs. them” mentality between the two generations that has been very convenient for political elites and the owning class. And maybe that’s the point of all of this. The legislation probably won’t even help the Democrats. But it will definitely be beneficial for insurance and drug companies.

As it is for everyone else in this country, millennials deserve more than being forced to pay money for something that most developed nations provide as a human right. National Improved Medicare for All isn’t a luxury – it’s something we deserve as human beings. And it’s time for my generation to stop being treated like our desire for social services that preserve basic human dignity makes us unrealistic, ungrateful utopians. Politicians need to step up and offer bold new solutions that aren’t just a repackaging of the failures of the past – or they’ll find themselves on the wrong side of history.

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