Waldman illustrates why the young must sign up for Obamacare for it to succeed:
The truth is that while we talk about the importance of young people being in the risk pool, what matters isn’t their age but their health. On average, young people will be healthier longer, but every year the system needs plenty of healthy people of whatever age they might be. When you ask them, the young are much more likely to report being healthy, with self-reported health declining the older you get.
Emma Roller covers efforts to get the young to enroll:
Mothers make the health care decisions in 80 percent of families, and they’re the most effective “messengers” to persuade their kids to sign up for health care. Anne Filipic, who leads the nonprofit group Enroll America, says men may be the ultimate target for groups promoting the exchanges—they are more skeptical of health insurance and tend to visit the doctor less—but they’re focusing on women because of their decision-making role. “The messenger matters a lot,” Filipic says. “The most effective thing we can do is get moms and women the information, so in their day-to-day conversations they can be spreading the word.”
Enroll America surveyed young people and asked who they were most likely to trust talking to them about health care. For young women, “someone like me” was the most persuasive messenger. For young men, it was their mom, followed by their spouse or girlfriend. That’s why the Obama administration has promoted the exchanges on mom-friendly media like allrecipes.com, Good Morning America, and Elle magazine.
The Dish 