The Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” faces many setbacks, but one of the most persistent and foreboding problems it faces is that millennials are not quick to sign up.
While the number of uninsured millennials age 19-25 fell 13.2 percentage points from 2010 to 2014, they still only make up just 30 percent of all Obamacare enrollees as of 2015.
Millennials surpassed the Baby Boomers as the largest generation in the United States in April, 2016. If Obamacare is going to have a sustainable future and remain viable, more millennials will have to pay into the healthcare exchanges.
The White House met with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of Education and various private interests Tuesday at the Affordable Care Act Millennial Outreach and Engagement Summit.
The summit served as the brainstorming session for the administration, health officials, and policy makers as to how they will bring more millennials into the healthcare marketplace.
The theory behind something like the Obamacare exchanges is rather simple. A group of young, healthy and active people pay into the system so that older, aging, and generally sicker people can receive payouts from the system. If there are fewer young people paying into the system, this creates a big dilemma in the long-run for the viability of the healthcare exchanges.
One of the chief reasons that large health insurers like Aetna and UnitedHealth are pulling out of the exchange marketplaces is just that, millennials (the young and healthy), are not playing into the market, according to Business Insider.
It’s hard to imagine a situation in which Obamacare could face further problems: 16 healthcare co-ops have gone under, the Tennessee Health Commissioner is saying the state’s Obamacare exchanges are “very near collapse,” and analysts foresee a dismal future for the system in either the short or long-term. (RELATED: Obamacare ‘Near Collapse’ In Tennessee, Says Insurance Regulator)
UnitedHealth Group is exiting 31 of the 34 exchanges in which they participate and Aetna is leaving 11 of its 15 states in which it participates by the end of 2016.
There also is a stark gap between uninsured 35 years and under, and uninsured between 45 and 65, according to the Center for Disease Control. The uninsured rate of those 25-34 years of age is 18.3 percent, a figure double that of those 45 to 64, which is a miniscule nine percent.
With open enrollment for the Obamacare exchanges staring Nov. 1, it is crunch time for the Obama administration.
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