A Point of View of a 23 year old.

With all the recent hoopla and buzz surrounding health care reform I have noticed that there are not any young voices speaking for or against the issue. Young people are largely disengaged with the healthcare debacle because they believe they can afford to be. Most of us do not own homes nor do we have retirement accounts or even savings accounts that we have worked hard for. We feel we have nothing to lose in this debate. We gamble with our health and more often than not we get away with it, but the truth is, we all grow older, this isn’t Neverland and there is no Peter Pan. The shock and horror of growing old happens to all of us. We rarely think or even speak of debilitating or chronic diseases, but it’s a possibility that all twenty something’s may have to face later.

Not participating in the ongoing healthcare reform battle will leave us all to settle for decisions others have made for us and this could potentially leave us with dire consequences in the not so distant future.

Whatever plan is eventually enacted by Congress, the full effects won’t be seen for many years to come. The youth of America appear not to be terribly concerned or interested in the heath care / insurance issue, but I fell we will be the ones who will live under the new proposed system for decades to come. We will be the ones who will have to pay for the consequence of inaction or worst yet, a bad new law.

The majority of us in our generation are constantly indulging on cheeseburgers, fast food and smoking and drinking like there’s no tomorrow. But that’s exactly why we’re going to need dependable, quality health care in our old age. Some of us even have an additional stake in the system as we pursue jobs in the industry. Even if you, somehow, don’t rely on the healthcare system for services or employment, as long as you’re a taxpayer, you’ll be picking up the tab. Just because something doesn’t affect us right now doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t look down the line at the negative payoffs that may be coming sooner than we think.

Getting old and sick isn’t something that we all like to talk about, it’s not something we even like to think about, but it’s going to happen. Many of us were there to help put President Obama in office, but we can’t stop there. We can no longer sit this fight out.

In actuality, this is our fight, not our parents, not our grandparents, but ours. We owe it to our future selves to know what we may be walking into. There is no doubt that health care reform is needed, but more than any other age group, we are the ones who need to realize that any decisions made now regarding healthcare will ultimately be affecting us more than any other demographic. We need to get informed and get involved in decisions that will shape our futures. No one can honestly afford to brush off this important debate. Anyone who does, young or old, ultimately deserves what they get.

President Obama’s healthcare reform speech was a huge hit, according to Nielsen TV Audience Measurement. In his second address to a joint session of Congress, across ten broadcast and cable networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, BET, CNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Univision and Telemundo) last Wednesday night speech aired to over 31 million viewers, adding up to a combined household rating of 20.4 and a share of 35. The TV show “Friends” airing on NBC from 1994 to 2004, had a 9.2 rating at its height and last seasons “American Idol” finale, FOX Network reality show had 28.8 million viewers.

With all the drama that took place at town hall meetings across America this past August you would not have believed that so many people would tune in to watch the President. So the question I have to ask is, why would so many viewers spend time watching a politician, who according to recent polling data, the majority of Americans do not trust, talk about an issue they don’t agree with him on?

Could it be that Americans across all political parties, ethnic and age groups are truly interested in healthcare reform? Maybe the President is right, healthcare reform is tied to our economy’s recovery and Americans understand the connection. Didn’t the polls and the “talking heads” predict early on last year that Mayor Rudy (Winning Florida will win me the election) Giuliani was going to be the GOP nominee for president?

Could it be that they are wrong … again!