When I was initially told at Youth Radio that I was going to be partnering up with someone from KQED to create a video on health care that the average young person would want to watch, and do this, by re-telling several stories that KQED had already reported, I was very skeptical about the outcome of the project. The subject of health care is so vast and vague that it's very hard to understand and relay to someone else who's also uninformed. Even most people who have health care don't understand why, what, and how their health care and the current health care system works. I felt the process would be like trying to teach a blind person colors or a deaf person what sound an elephant makes. Basically, it would be a very hard thing to accomplish.

When I met Amanda Stupi from KQED, I related my concerns to her, as she did to me, and we found a middle ground. We listened to many KQED shows concerning health care and then we used the facts stated in the KQED pieces in the video. While listening to the KQED shows for information, I found that I had accidently fallen asleep a few times. Also, when I was awake, sometimes I would go into a trance where I could hear someone talking, but I wasn't actually listening to them -- it was kind of like the sound the teacher from Charlie Brown makes when she speaks in class.

Health care has been getting a lot of attention lately but it's still easy for people who've always had health care through their parents or their employers to wonder why the nation seems transfixed on the topic (balloon boy coverage aside). Here's a video In Other Words put together that highlights some basic health care facts in a way that we hope piques your interest.

By: Emily Beaver

This week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that under a health reform bill in the House of Representatives, young adults could stay insured under their parents' plans through age 26.

Members of Y.I. Want Change, a coalition of youth organizations formed by the Young Invincibles health reform advocacy group, and their supporters stood with Pelosi when she made the announcement at a press conference. The reform could be an important victory for young people.

"It's important because as young people graduate from college and are struggling to find jobs in this economy, they need to have coverage and this provides them with an option," said Chrissy Faessen, vice president of communications and marketing for Rock the Vote. The organization is a member of the Y.I. Want Change coalition.

Right now, about 25 states allow young people to stay on their parents' plans into their 20s. But in other states, young adults get dropped from their parents' private health insurance plans, usually between ages 19 and 22. At age 19, most young people no longer qualify for Medicaid, a government health insurance program that provides coverage for very low-income children and parents.

Before she was old enough to legally drink alcohol, Denise Tejada bought a house in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. Her brother Wilmer bought his first house when he was 21 and now he’s planning to invest in a second property soon.

Watch the video to find out how they did it.

By Emily Beaver

When it comes to the health care reform debate, the lingo keeps changing. One day, everyone's talking about the public option and the next day it's health care co-operatives.With so many different ideas and plans about how to change health care in Congress right now, it's hard to keep up with up with all of the health care terms in the headlines.

Here are ten more health reforms terms you need to know to follow the debate:

By Isaiah Bryant  

Lately I’ve noticed it’s become harder and harder to ride the bus without seeing people acting silly. It’s about time folks re-learn some basic bus etiquette. Take this recent ride for example. I was taking the bus down Broadway on my way to work, when I started to see everyone around me acting crazy. There was a college student who talked over his cell phone as loudly as he could about how “rad” last week’s party was. An elderly woman glaring at a younger man for not giving up his seat, another lady making a mess as she stuffed her face with food, and a homeless guy making the strangest faces at a crying baby -- which just made it cry more. To top it off, as the bus stops to let on kids out of school, a fight breaks out in the back.

All of this wouldn’t happen if people acted like they were raised right. All a person has to do is follow some simple and common bus etiquette:

Rule 1: Don’t mess with someone’s child; it’s kind of weird. The best thing to do is to comment on how cute or handsome the child is (but don’t get carried away).

Rule 2: Don’t be loud on the bus! It’s public transportation, so that means other people are riding with you. The less noise there is, the more pleasant the ride is for everyone.

Rule 3: Guys! If you plan to hit on a girl, or another dude, do so at your own risk and with caution. Rejection on a bus can sting way more than usual cause you’ll have a bunch of people to witness it.

Rule 4: For your safety, don’t “mean mug” anyone (especially if they look like they could be a mixed martial arts fighter).

In the end, observe the golden rule. And if you don’t know what that is…stay off the bus.

Talking about sex to teens is always hard because there are times when teens know more than what they should. But, is promoting abstinence to them realistic?

Apparently, to a Republican senator it is. Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah proposed a bill that would provide $50 million per year through 2014 for abstinence education programs. These funds are to be used specifically for abstinence programs and not on any other sex-ed subjects (like contraception).

Teens and abstinence, I’m not sure. I’m not saying teens can’t stop having sex, but growing up in time where sex is everywhere—TV, cartoons, school—it’s hard.

To help unpack this issue, Youth Radio spoke to Tatiana Colon, Director of Education & Youth Services of Family Violence Law Center (FVLC) in Oakland.

“Promoting or teaching abstinence to teens—like the ones we work with (urban kids)—are not effective.” She went on to say, “It’s not meeting teens where they are at.”

By: Emily Beaver

For many young people, health insurance is unaffordable. But under some plans to reform health care, going without health insurance will be expensive, too.

Senator Max Baucus recently introduced a health care reform plan that requires everyone to get insurance. Anyone who doesn't have insurance would be fined up to $950 a year, depending on income.

Making sure everyone gets health insurance is an important goal of many of the plans to reform health care. For some, the principle that everyone should have health care is behind the "individual mandate" requiring everyone to get health insurance. But there's another reason lawmakers want to get everyone insured--to lower the government's cost of making health insurance affordable.

All forms of insurance, including health insurance, work by spreading costs among a pool of people. Since young people generally spend less on medical care, their insurance premiums help to subsidize the cost of care for older, sicker people. When young people don't buy insurance, costs go up for those who are insured. So making sure everyone contributes to health insurance is important to lowering costs overall.

Senator Baucus' reform bill does offer a few benefits for young people. His plan would allow some low-income young people to get insurance under the government's Medicaid program, which has been closed to young adults who don't have children.

The bill would also create a "young invincibles" health care plan available to Americans age 25 and younger, which would cover emergency medical and preventive care only.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank in Washington, DC,  has published a new study that raises the question of  how inequities in health care for minorities are impacting the cost of health care in the country at large. The study was carried out by researchers at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University.

Some of the health disparities minorities face include these statistics:

•Mexican-Americans are nearly twice as likely to have diabetes as whites.

•Vietnamese-American women have nearly five times the rate of cervical cancer as white women.

•Black men are twice as likely to have prostate cancer as white men.

The study confirmed that minority Americans are much more likely to die as infants, have shorter life spans, and have higher rates of diseases and disabilities. However, the issue is complex and the cause of the disparities is not completely known.

Young people discuss how the recession is affecting their education. They describe overcrowded classrooms, long lines at financial aid offices, and stress.