Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, September 24, 2009 4:07:29 PM
Do you remember your joy the day you got your first medical insurance card? The way your eyes glistened at the thought of finally getting that prostate exam? The realization that, for the first time in your young life, you could now suffer catastrophic injury and not be bankrupted?
Me either.
The fact is for almost every twenty-something I ever met health insurance was a non-issue. Maybe once they got married and had children they came to realize that health insurance was a beneficial expense, but prior to that, we might have had insurance thanks to a job, and we probably took it as otherwise we lost out on the employer payments, but we were hardly excited by it.
I was reminded of that today while reading
Best of the Web. They had a small piece on how the twenty something would suffer financially under the ObamCare plan, and, while that is a concern, I think they miss the bigger one.
You see, the idealist twenty-somethings might be willing to pay, might be fired up enough to sacrifice, but only for a cause which catches their imagination. And, in your twenties, health care isn't it. You lack the experience of real medical expensees and have too little fea rof future injury to really care. A few might know a friend or family member who had high medial expenses, but, considering how widespread insurance coverage is, in most cases that was covered by insurance. The number of twenty-something who have immediate experience with someone bankrupted by medical costs is very small. Which means, for the most part, medical care is a nonstarter with twenty somethings.
And that is a big problem for Obama, and for the newcomers from the class of 2008.
Obama, for all the talk of his "landslide" did not win by a huge number, and the numbers he got were largely due to two factors, turning out minority votes in unprecedented numbers, and excitement generated among the usually under-represented twenty somethings.
Of course this bodes ill for 2010, as neither group has any serious motivation to turn out, and I have the feeling the Democrats are resigned to losses in that election. But pushing health care seems likely to have repercussions in 2012 as well. When Obama was the outsider, the newcomer, an exciting new voice, he had a lot of support from the youth vote. But now, having been "the government" for four years, and on top of that pushing an agenda which not only costs them money, but also fails to interest them, can the Democrats expect a youth turnout in 2012? The minority vote may still be there, though without the "historic" aspect of 2008 may not be there in great numbers, but it seems most likely the youth vote will be completely absent.
It is this realization, more than any other that causes me to reject my earlier conclusions in "
It Sounds Strange", as well as
Michael Medved's recent column, and instead repeat what I said in "
Winning By Losing? Not A Chance!". Yes, Clinton did manage to turn a loss into a victory by claiming credit for much of the Contract with America, but as I said in "
Learning Too Much From History" every case is different. Obama has already proved himself too stubborn to truly pull off a Clinton-like miracle. Obama may talk both sides of an issue, but Clinton could actually steal positions from the opposition, while Obama is too inflexible for that. And so, while another president might be saved by being able to blame the opposition for failures while stealing credit for their successes, Obama's ego and stubbornness seem unlikely to allow that. (provided we continue to stick to our principles as I described in "
"Doing Something" Revisited", as alienating our base is the one way we could manage to hand the government back to the Democrats.)