Keeping Young Voters' Buy In

Update -- A friend correctly points out that the gripes here are with the negotiations in the Senate. The House bill treated young people quite well and on par with seniors. My apologies for failing to distinguish.

Original Post:

If one needed proof that the importance of youth has yet to really penetrate the minds of Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill, look no further than the deal cut on health care. Substantively, I'm one of those heretics who thinks that the public option had been so watered down that its removal doesn't condemn the bill. The insurance regulations -- preventing pre-existing condition discrimination and rescission, for example -- and subsidies plus the longer term efforts at cost containment make the bill a big net win for the country.

But as the public option was stripped out, Democrats saw a need to take care of at least one demographic:

Beyond that, the group agreed--contingent upon CBO analysis--to a Medicare buy in.

That buy-in option would initially be made available to some uninsured people aged 55-64 in 2011, three years before the exchanges open.

In other words, young voters got a public option...for their parents.

The fundamental decisions around this legislation shouldn't simply be about constituencies pursuing their own narrow interests. And, even without a public option, the vast, vast majority of young people will be significantly better off with the passage of this bill than they were without.

But it is disappointing that Democrats would turn their back on a generation that placed so much trust in them. Beyond that, it is politically stupid. Democrats are preparing a narrative that won't work to reach one of their biggest target audiences. Given the heavy overlap between all three of the Rising American Electorate constituencies -- youth, unmarried women, and people of color -- the reality is that Democrats are setting themselves up in a less-than-great way politically.

So the question young people may want to ask themselves is, How can we get Democrats to pay attention to our self-interest? We can't even convince them to care about their own.