Healthcare reform is dominating the airwaves but youth perspectives and analyses have been missing from the national discussion about who benefits and how.

Choice USA is part of the YI Want Change Coalition , a diverse group of organizations amplifying the youth voice in the healthcare reform debate. Together we've created the YI Care Agenda, a list of policy points that demand youth are listened to in the healthcare reform debate. Check out the Agenda here.

Why does healthcare matter to us?

About 13 million, or 1 in 3, Americans between the age of 19 and 29 are uninsured. Only 50% of young Americans receive health care through an employer, and of the young Americans who have been affected by job loss, 46% have seen their health coverage disappear.  We are far from invincible.

Beyond this we're seeing more and more young people not getting preventative care, particularly related to their reproductive health.  Prohibitive costs of STI testing and routine gynecological exams keep us away from the doctor. Meanwhile our STI rates are rising: young people in the United States ages 15-24 make up only one-quarter of the sexually active population but they contract about half of the 19 million STDs each year.  Young people aged 13-29 accounted for 34% of new HIV infections in 2007.

Young women are paying for current insurance companies' ability to discriminate in 33 states, based on age, gender and health status without any restrictions whatsoever.  Younger women are often charged higher premiums than men during their reproductive years.  Holding other factors constant, a 22-year-old-woman can be charged one and a half times the premium of a 22-year-old man  Such a premium hike can mean the difference between coverage that is affordable and coverage that is too expensive to take on. In select states it is legal to designate both pregnancy and domestic violence as pre-existing conditions. This practice is unacceptable and will be prohibited if the new bills pass as they stand.

Sex education has also been wrapped up in healthcare reform. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah pushed through an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee authorizing $50 million in funding for abstinence-only programs as part of Health Care Reform.  We need to make sure this amendment is stripped out of the final version of healthcare reform and that comprehensive sex education is funded instead. Teens deserve the information to make healthy decisions in their lives and we believe good sex education is preventative healthcare.

The YI Care Agenda demands healthcare reform that acknowledges America's youth are not invincible.  We need healthcare that breaks down our access barriers and allows us comprehensive care options. We want coverage of preventative treatment, not just an expensive catastrophic option like the "young invincibles" plan Congress has proposed.  While the plan is a start in acknowledging young people need better access to health insurance, a plan with a $3000 deductible that only covers us in emergencies is not enough.

Join Choice USA and the YI Care Coalition in raising our voices!