Dean Baker: Obamacare and Those Invincible Youngsters

There is an ongoing media obsession with the number of young people who sign up for health care insurance through Obamacare. We have been repeatedly told that the success of the program depends on large numbers of healthy young people -- the “young invincibles” -- signing up for the program.

The story is that these young people will subsidize the rest of us by paying more for their insurance than they receive back from the system in benefits. The excessive payments from young people will cover the cost of the older sick people in the exchange.