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.

While the "young invincible" plan could help young people get access to insurance, it doesn't necessarily give them access to quality health care--only catastrophic emergencies and preventative care would be covered. Young people with chronic health problems like asthma and diabetes wouldn't have adequate coverage.

Senator Baucus' reform bill doesn't include a public option, a government-run health insurance program. Without a public option, private insurers have little incentive to create better, more affordable health insurance plans that young people would want to buy.

And since few health plans available to young people cost less than $950 a year (which would break down to about $80 a month), paying the fine for being uninsured could still cost less.

Some critics have complained that Senator Baucus' bill caters to young people. But Senator Baucus' bill actually offers little for people--young or old--who don't get health insurance through an employer. Most will be forced to choose between spending money for health insurance that won't necessarily cover quality care or paying a fine.
 

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