The Buzz: Health care reformers a mature bunch

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

By Christie Koriakin

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-In line with the national ambiguity, very few young adult Jackson Hole residents have joined the rallies organized in recent months by Wyoming for Healthcare Reform, a Jackson-based group.

Last Wednesday, about 30 people rallied on the Town Square to draw attention to their call for healthcare reform. Carrying signs with slogans like “honk for healthcare” and shouting “people are dying” over a loud megaphone, the group could have been mistaken for a university protest, except that almost all of the picketers were beyond college age.

   Drawn along partisan lines, the healthcare debate is an intense tug of war. But divided across age groups, a much different pattern appears. According to a September 2009 Gallup poll, young adults were more uncertain than older groups about whether they wanted their congress members to support the Healthcare Reform Bill. The age group was 34 in favor, 34 against and 31 undecided.

The poll defines “young adults” as between 18 and 34 years old, but does not say how many of the 1,026 people polled fell in that group, nor does it indicate whether the sampling favors one side of the age range or the other. It also fails to determine whether they understand the bill or whether they support healthcare reform in general.

  At 26, Wilson resident Claire Fuller was one of the only people at the rally under the age of 50. Fuller said she is disappointed that young people aren’t more involved.

“I am shocked that this hasn’t come out as a young person’s issue when we are so affected by it,” Fuller said. “[The current healthcare system] marries us to our jobs and makes us less mobile.”

    Because the healthcare rally was organized last-minute, it’s possible that young adults simply didn’t know about it or weren’t able to take time off of work to attend.

“We were all at our jobs working so that we can actually afford healthcare,” said Ali Shafranek, a 29-year-old marketing associate for Grand Teton Music Festival. One attendee of the event pointed out that plenty of young people beeped their horns in support. 

But event organizer Sandy Shuptrine – whose experience with private insurance, she said, has been fraught with pre-existing conditions, rising premiums, and repeated denials from health insurance providers –  suggested another possible reason for a lack of participation among young people: life experience.
 “Until you have actually witnessed someone you love go through something, or seen premiums increasing, it’s hard to care as much,” she said “I think ... people in their 20s feel immortal.”

Just for that reason, 20-somethings have been dubbed the “young invincibles” in the healthcare debate. The term refers to Americans between 19 and 29 years old who opt out of healthcare, perceiving themselves to be invulnerable to health threats.

Echoing this sentiment, 26-year-old valley resdent Kevin Brough hasn’t had health insurance for six years. “I really think that I have adamantium in my bones,” Brough said, referring to a fictional “alien metal that [the X-Men superhero] Wolverine had bonded to his bones to make him invincible. Seriously, I don’t think I am going to get hurt and insurance is ... too expensive.”

Combine a blasé attitude with the fact that many young adults in Teton County have resort town jobs that make paying a monthly premium difficult, and the result is that almost one-third of Wyoming residents between 19 and 29 are uninsured, according to a 2003 survey by Families USA. Nearly half of this demographic nationally was uninsured at some time during 2009, according to a survey by the Commonwealth Fund.

“If there is one thing I want the government to fix, it’s healthcare,” said 26-year-old, Jonathan Koreski, an uninsured valley man who works seasonally on the park and pipe crew for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Koreski said he hasn’t joined the healthcare rallies because change seems out of reach.
“What’s the point? Just to watch Congress sit on their ass some more?” he said.
Even Fuller, by far the youngest attendee of last week’s health reform rally, admitted that she’s not sure anything is going to change anytime soon.  “I really am hopeful,” she said. “But I honestly just expect to keep paying an exorbitant amount for insurance for the rest of my life.”

Having recently ended her stuggle with private insurance because she has reached retirement age, and is now eligible for medicare, Shuptrine remains in the fight for her children and grandchildren affected by healthcare policy.

She’s organizing weekly lunch discussions at 12:15 p.m., Wednesdays, beginning today and continuing through March 17 at the Antler Motel.

“This is an issue that affects how we operate as a nation,” said Shuptrine. “I’m here for myself, but also because I want my children and grandchildren to have adequate healthcare.”

Fuller plans to attend the meetings and wishes her peers would become more involved too. “I think maybe it’s a feeling of ‘you are doing it so I don’t have to.’ I think that’s a little short-sighted.” JHW 

Photo by PETER PILAFIAN
Health care reform advocates rally on the Town Square Wednesday.

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