In this five column series, Executive Editor Ryan Fazio explains that despite overwhelming support from young adults, Obamacare will harm them most. Part three will be published Thursday evening.

Part one: Why the status quo is bad for young adults

Part two: Obamacare nationalizes regulations detrimental to young adults

As a consequence of the original Senate healthcare bill and reconciliation bill that were signed into law, existing regulations punishing youth and health in many  states will now be a national policy. Most explicitly hostile towards young Americans is a provision in Obamacare that fixes the price of insurance for young adults to that of older Americans. The law outlaws someone in their twenties from buying a policy at less than one third of what someone in their fifties would be charged, for instance. In an unregulated market, where insurers could price according to risk and age, that same 20-something would could buy a policy for only a sixth or seventh of what the 50-something is charged according to health policy experts.

Additionally, section 2107 of HR 3590 bans health insurers from pricing insurance on the basis of health status. This community rating code will penalize young, healthy people and cause their premiums to rise as they are priced according to the risk of older and less healthy people.

Next,  section 2711 of the law bans people from purchasing insurance with annual or lifetime limits on insurance. These products could be very attractive options for young people who are in good health or who have lower incomes than most. But Americans will no longer have the freedom to choose this type of plan under Obamacare.

The subsequent section of the bill, 2712, requires all patients have plans that cover preventative care and have cost sharing. So young Americans who take care of themselves and find these policies to be unaffordable or simply a bad deal will be forced to shoulder the burden regardless.

Young Americans will also have to deal with a new bevy of procedure mandates on top of the ones already imposed upon them by the state in which they reside. Section 1302 stipulates that no one may purchase insurance unless the government certifies it as a “qualified plan.” Among the requirements to be recognized as such is that the plan cover at least the following procedures: ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

David Hogberg addressed the loss of personal choice these mandates entail in an article when the bill was passed, but it turns out that it is particularly pertinent to young people. If you are a young, unmarried ambitious woman who is not ready to bear children because of her career, or even cannot have children at all, you still have to pay for marternity benefits. If you are a young bachelor who does not have, want, or even like kids, you still have to pay for pediatric benefits. If you have never tried drugs or alcohol, its against your personal beliefs or faith, don’t have family history, or have “experimented with marijuana [but] didn’t inhale,” you still must pay for substance abuse coverage. And if you’re not crazy, well the government is worried you might be, so your policy still must cover mental and behavior health treatment.

These aren’t the only things you will be forced to pay for in your insurance. The bill gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services power to dictate all “essential health benefits” above the aforementioned specifically in the bill. I would be hard pressed to be told how Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas in her last job, knows what all 300 million Americans should and must pay for in their health insurance better than each individual American knows for him or herself. Regardless, she will render these judgments and it will make insurance more expensive and less efficient particularly for the young.

The most infamous part of the bill is the individual mandate requiring every American to buy insurance. And if its explicitly coercive nature does not make you uncomfortable, its purpose and effects should. The fact is the individual mandate is the glue that holds all the aforementioned inflationary regulation together.

In the highly regulated markets, adverse selection occurs as young people drop out because insurance becomes too expensive and inflexible for them to want or be able to purchase. Consequently, prices go up even more as only older and more risk-prone patients remain in the market. Obamacare “fixes” this problem by forcing young people to buy the type of insurance older people want, at the price old people pay for it, thereby shifting the cost of healthcare from the old to the young. The independent RAND Corporation conducted a study estimating that premiums for young adults will rise 17% directly because of Obamacare, while other independent groups have estimated they will grow by much more. Not only will the new law inflate prices and limit freedom of choice, but if you (understandably) find health insurance to not be such a great deal any more, you will be forced to buy it or pay the government for the “privilege” not to. Young Americans will be forced to pay for other people’s health care, whether they like it or not. And as we shall see, not only will they be paying for it in the short run, but even more heavily for decades to come.

…young people especially (courtesy of The Economist)

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