Health Care Reform Benefits Causing Headache for College Republicans
SOURCE:
Minnesota College Republicans show their opposition to President Obama outside the Target Center in Minneapolis on Sept. 12, 2009, where President Barack Obama addressed a health care rally. Benefits of health care reform for young people seem to be creating a problem for College Republicans.
A senior member of the College Republicans group, which sponsors chapters on campuses nationwide, said the Affordable Care Act—which has significantly helped college students—has become a tricky issue for the group.
Recent data indicates that nearly 1 million more young Americans had health insurance coverage this year than in 2009 [PDF]; officials say the increase is thanks to a provision in the act that permits students to remain on their parents’ plan until 26. That policy took effect in September 2010.
“That’s an issue that on college campuses we battle every day as College Republicans and that we get questions about,” the group’s National Co-Chairwoman Alex Smith said during a Google+ “hangout” sponsored by Fox News, according to Politico. “The candidate that will speak to specifics like that issue and others is going to be the candidate that will eventually prevail among the youth vote.”
Health care is the “No. 1” issue among college students right now, Rod Snyder, the president of Young Democrats of America, told Campus Progress.
“It’s hard to say that the people of any age group will cast their vote based on any issue, but of all the things I’d put it at the top of the list for sure,” he said. “If I were sitting in the College Republicans’ shoes, it’s a very difficult argument to make when you have all the Republican leaders in Congress and in general opposing a bill ... that has had this huge of an impact on the millennial generation. That’s a very tough position to be in, to try and defend that.”
Smith refused to elaborate on her remarks when contacted by Politico, despite an unrelated emailed statement that attacked President Obama’s economic plans, claiming young people are frustrated over the president’s “failure to create jobs that would allow us to purchase our own health coverage.”
Recently, Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius lauded the policy’s benefit for young Americans.
“This doesn’t just give young adults and their families peace of mind, it also gives them freedom,” Sebelius said. “It means that as they begin their careers they will be able to make career choices based on what they want to do, not on where they can get health insurance.”
Brian Stewart is the journalism and online communications manager at Campus Progress.
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