September 16, 2009 11:32AM 

# 20-somethings Will Pay for Big Government 

By [Daniel Griswold](https://www.cato.org/people/daniel-griswold) 

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A front-page *Washington Post* story today notes that the cost of Obama-style health care reform [will fall disproportionately on young adults](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/15/AR2009091503716.html?hpid=topnews).

Younger workers are typically more healthy than the population at large, and a significant share of them quite rationally choose not to buy health insurance, as my colleague Mike Tanner explains [in a recent op-ed](http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/53772767.html?cmpid=15585797). The major health care plans on the table in Washington would force them to buy coverage. As the *Post* story explains:

> Drafting young adults into any health-care reform package is crucial to paying for it. As low-cost additions to insurance pools, young adults would help dilute the expense of covering older, sicker people. **Depending on how Congress requires insurers to price their policies, this group could even wind up paying disproportionately hefty premiums—effectively subsidizing coverage for their parents.**

I’m beginning to see a pattern. Those same young workers will be forced to pay the bills for soaring Social Security and Medicare expenditures when the Baby Boomers begin retiring en masse a decade from now. And of course, they will be the ones paying off the $9 trillion in additional federal debt expected to be wracked up from the current explosion in federal spending.

I always thought parents were supposed to support their kids, not saddle them with bigger bills and huge debts.

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) 

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