It is going to be difficult to pass any meaningful reform for our health care system until seniors, who have the votes and have already "got theirs" with respect to health care (even though most paid nowhere near enough to justify what they are now taking) get on board.
Support for change is near unanimous among younger people, at least those paying attention. Most of us have been bouncing around between insured, under-insured, unsure if we're insured, and uninsured our entire adult lives, and see nothing that is going to change this as long as the current system persists. Unfortunately, we don't have the votes to tackle the seniors, who seem perfectly willing to suck our generation dry.
Frankly, people who are asking "What's in it for me" disgust me. It isn't about YOU. It is about US. And our country is paying about 50% more than anyone else, for care that is great when you get it, but spotty and insecure and terrible at prevention and the treatment of chronic problems. And these absurd prices are simply breaking the back of workers.
I like to half-jokingly suggest that we pass a new Medicare bill entitled "If your kids lose it, you lose it too". The basic gist being that when your kids lose their health insurance, you lose your Medicare in proportion. (No kids should equal no Medicare at all...presumably you saved some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars you didn't spend raising them; and if you didn't, you can sell the toys you bought for the pills you think you deserve but don't). The moment seniors have their own bottoms in the same boat as their kids and grandkids, things would change in a real hurry.
