Governor Jerry Brown gave his State of the State address to Californians today. His proposed budget aims to fill the deficit of $9.2 billion dollars by cutting public programs and generating revenue from new tax initiatives. Among other cuts, Brown's budget suggests eliminating the Healthy Families Program, which currently provides health insurance to low-income teenagers and children, and switching them onto Medi-Cal insurance. 

Janet Coffman, Professor at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, spoke with Youth Radio about the potential effects of this switch.

Youth Radio: Can you explain the magnitude of this proposed action? Is it just an organizational switch, or while it have ripple effects? 

The 2011 eHealth College Student and Grads Survey, conducted by Kelton Research, shows that while college students and recent college graduates value health insurance - they don’t necessarily have the knowledge or the support to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act.

According to the study:
- Nearly all students (97%), recent grads (97%) and parents (97%) agree that it is important to have health insurance
- Most students (94%) and grads (93%) would willingly make sacrifices or give up at least one small indulgence like a weekly night out at the movies or dinner, or their daily coffee, if it meant they could afford health insurance
- Almost two in three students (63%) and grads (66%) think it’s fair for parents to help their children cover health insurance costs for a year or more after graduation and over half of parents (58%) agree. Yet more than four in ten parents (43%) with adult children under age 26 would only be willing to keep their children under their own health insurance plan if it cost them nothing
- More than one in two (57%) current students think it’s more important for grads to take a job they don’t like but which offers benefits like health insurance or a retirement account

To demonstrate further that young people value health insurance, 74% of recent grads would rather live at home with their parents in order to have health insurance, than live on their own without it.

The survey does show that the changes in health care coverage have made a difference. Last year’s survey showed that 14% of recent grads were covered by health plans paid for by their parents, and this year, 31% are covered by health insurance paid for by their parents.

EHealthInsurance has put together a chart for college graduates to help explain their health insurance options. Check it out below:

This month marks the anniversary of the major health care reform bill, the Affordable Care Act, and according to Aaron Smith, co-founder and executive director of Young Invincibles, even more young people than expected took advantage of the ability to get back on their parents’ health insurance over the past year.

Young Invincibles is an organization that works to educate, inform, and mobilize young people in the health care debate. One huge period of transition for young people is graduating from college, and entering the job market for the first time. “It’s difficult for young adults to get a job, and even more difficult to find one with health benefits,” said Smith. “In college you’re insulated. Students tend to have insurance, and over 50 percent of four year schools require that you have insurance or are on the school plan,” he said.

Young Invincibles, in collaboration with the Roosevelt Institute and Families USA, put together a “Graduation Toolkit” available to download for free from their website. The toolkit consists of a series of fact sheets about health care topics that are most interesting to young people. They worked with a student advisory committee at UC Davis to figure out what these topics were.

“It was interesting to me that students are hungry for substantive and detailed information,” said Smith. “There’s an impression that students don’t want details, but they don’t know what a deductible is, or what a premium is. They want that information,” he said.  Smith said the basic facts about health care are totally new to recent college graduates, and there isn’t enough information coming from colleges and universities about how to make health care decisions.

The November elections are just around the corner.  According to Bakari Kitwana of the Huffington Post, the 18 - 29 age demographic will be extremely important once again. However, he makes the argument, “Over the last two years President Barack Obama did not fulfill his campaign commitments to the 14 million plus young voters so crucial to his 2008 victory.”

He explains that the youth sent Obama to the White House to make change happen, and now they have to decide if he’s done enough.  Are the changes to health care, student loans, the economy, and the war in Iraq big enough signs of change?

While we can’t predict which way the elections will go, we can see the political energy still surging through young people around the country.  

The College Republicans National Committee (CRNC) has been actively recruiting new Republican voters.  “We’ve put field representatives in Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to work with the local college representatives to recruit, train, and engage college students for statewide victory purposes,” said Rob Lockwood, Communications Director for the CRNC.

Lockwood said they focused their recruiting efforts in these battleground states and have succeeded in recruiting 25,200 new college Republicans in these states alone. He said young voters are especially important to this election.  “It’s been proven that the college years are the most formative in shaping a political opinion. Because young people voted in record numbers in 2008, it’s important to get them to the polls again. We believe young people voted for the power of personality in 2008. They were energized. They voted for hope and change.  However, neither of those has been implemented.  The only change they got is massive debt on their tab, in exchange for short term political gain,” said Lockwood.

Likewise, the College Democrats of America (CDA) are busy recruiting young people to vote.  Alejandra Salinas, President of the CDA said they have targeted certain states. “In Texas, we only had eight chapters last year.  This year we have 45,” she said.  She also cited the numbers of young voters in 2008 as a powerful sign. “We all learned in 2008 that the power is with the people who show up to vote. We elected democratic people who stood up for student rights issues such as credit card reform, health care reform, and student loan reform.  These changes have improved the lives of young people across the country,” she said.

Originally broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition on September 22, 2010.

By Molly Adams

Before health care reform was signed into law, President Obama made a speech where he was pretty much talking to me when he said: "If you're a young adult, which many of you are, you'll be able to stay on your parents' insurance policy until you're 26 years old."

This was good news for me -- two years since I became an official independent adult. That rite of passage was graduating college and being removed from my parents' health insurance coverage. And since then I haven't been able to find an affordable plan as a single person who works three different jobs. So when the law was signed I called my mom, Sheera LaBelle, and I asked her a question to which I could guess the answer: "Mom, will you take me back?"

by: Emily Beaver

Under 26 with no health insurance? Signing up for Mom or Dad's health insurance plan later this year might be the cure.

On September 23, part of health care reform that allows young adults to get insurance coverage through their parents' plans until age 26 will become law. Before Congress passed health care reform earlier this year, every state had different rules about how long young people could be covered under their parents' plans. Insurance plans could drop young adults when they turned 19 or graduated from college. Some states allowed young people to stay on their parents plans into their twenties, but required them to live with their parents, be unmarried, or be a college student.

The good news for young people is that the new law does away with these rules, said Ari Matusiak, co-founder the Young Invincibles, an organization that promotes opportunities for people ages 18 to 34. Starting September 24, young adults living in any state won't have to live with their parents, be students, or even be unmarried to be insured through a parent's health care plan, he said.

Matusiak and Young Invincibles co-founder Aaron Smith teamed up with AARP, a group for people over age 50, to answer questions about the new law at a virtual town hall meeting in Sacramento, California on Thursday. They also introduced GettingCovered.org, a new website that helps young adults find out if they can get insured through a parent's plan. The site, created by the Young Invincibles, lets young adults and their parents take a short quiz to find their health care options - they can even get personal "health care prescriptions" based on their quiz results e-mailed to them. Employers can also find information about adding adult children to insurance plans.

This story originally aired on NPR's Morning Edition, March 24, 2010

President Obama signed the health care overhaul bill into law yesterday. Still, some health organizations want more to be done to provide care to uninsured Americans including the American Dental Association. They opposed the bill because it didn't increase funding for dental services paid by Medicaid. And that, the ADA says, won't help the millions of Americans without dental insurance. Youth Radio's Jennifer Obakhume visits one family dealing with that reality.

Cesscia Rojo and her sister Adriana are young and healthy, except they have dental issues. Major ones. Cesscia says, when they needed care, they used to go to Tijuana, Mexico.

“I went to Tijuana and that’s where they started the root canal. When I came back, all the problems started with the drugs dealers, so I wasn’t going back to TJ anytime soon.”

Both sisters have tried to get dental care in the U-S. Adriana used a free clinic in Southern California to have a broken tooth pulled. But she needs more dental work.

“I still have a hole in my mouth. It hurts sometimes if I chew bread cuz it goes in there and it hurts, but other than that it’s good.”

The sisters live at a home with their parents. Cesscia says they enjoy cooking dinner together every night.

"See really you know, Mexican culture, we, they hold on to us until we’re married. And we’re not married, and we’re here until we finish school. And then we’ll take them in. And we’re just going to stay together."

After months of debating, 219 members of the House of Representatives voted “yes” on health care reform. The new legislation will extend coverage to 95% of the population. 32 million people who lack insurance will now be eligible for health care. President Obama is set to sign the bill on Tuesday and the Senate is expected to pass the reconciliation bill by the end of this week. Here’s a quick rundown of how uninsured young people will benefit from the bill.

Young people who were denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions will now be able to get covered. Fifteen percent of young Americans who suffer from chronic conditions will now have access to health care. Young people will also be able to stay insured through their parent’s coverage until the age of 26—more than two million uninsured young adults will benefit from this provision.

   • Young Americans can remain on their parents’ health insurance until their 26th birthday.
   • Health plans will be prohibited from dropping individuals’ coverage when they get sick.
   • Medicaid will be expanded to cover every American earning less than 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), providing coverage to nine million currently uninsured young adults.

Here in the Bay Area people will see changes swiftly. According to Deputy District Director, Ricci Graham Barbara Lee’s congressional district will see changes immediately. “Extending coverage to 52 thousand people immediately—including young adults who have been dropped from their parent’s insurance.” Graham also says it will improve the quality of insurance to 360 thousand residents in the congress women ninth congressional district.

Having health care will no longer be an option, it will be the law. Under this bill, people are required to apply for health care and if they don’t, they will be fined.
 

By: Emily Beaver

The House of Representative passed a health care reform bill Sunday, delivering on President Obama's promise of change.

After months of debate, argument, and just plain bickering about health care, the House passed a health care reform bill by a vote of 219-212. Only Democrats supported the bill, which will extend health insurance to millions of people and will provide new protections for people who already have insurance. The vote was historic -- if it becomes a law, it would require almost all Americans to have insurance for the first time. The vote was also exciting -- one of those rare times when watching Congress work felt more like witnessing history than watching sausage being made.

"This isn't radical reform, but it is major reform," Obama said at a press conference after the vote. "This is what change looks like."

What the House passed on Sunday was just one piece of health care reform bill, called the reconciliation bill. Next, Obama will sign the health care reform bill the Senate passed in December. On Tuesday, the Senate will have to pass the reconciliation bill before health care reform becomes law.