Young Man Spurs Healthcare Interest Through Facebook at He's Fit

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Young Man Spurs Healthcare Interest Through Facebook

Posted November 28, 2007 at 03:00 PM by Megan Hueter

Section: In The News, His Health, Physical Health, His Inspiration, Success Stories

25-year-old Jeff Traylor needed some extra money in his time between college and law school, so he decided to take a part-time gig of working in a restaurant. Because he worked only 30 hours per week, like 44 million other Americans, Traylor did not qualify for health insurance. When taken down by a sinus infection, he was forced to visit clinics and spend over $130 for a doctors visit and antibiotics. So much for making extra money. It turns out, this experience would inspire Traylor toward taking steps in a social movement of young people advocating for healthcare priorities.

Traylor’s girlfriend, in a similar financial situation, suffered from ringworm and delayed getting treatment for lack of money. Angry and frustrated with the situation, Traylor created a group on the social networking site Facebook to promote universal health care. His is one of more than 20 groups on Facebook dedicated to advocating expanded government health coverage, and many of them have hundreds of members.

Young people who are organizing around the issue on Facebook say interest has increased over the past few years. And Michael Moore’s recent documentary “Sicko” helped to galvanize young people.

After seeing the movie, Robert Alsobrook, 28, a sculpture professor at Taylor University in Upland, Ind., started a Facebook group to discuss universal health care.

According to The Politico, the number and size of the groups are “unsurprising when you consider the surge in interest in health policy among young people, one-third of whom are uninsured.” A recent poll of young adults conducted by Rock the Vote found that health care ranked as their second most important election issue after the war in Iraq.

rock the vote Democrats ages 18 to 34 considered health care to be the most important issue in the presidential primary, compared with 14 percent of Republicans in that age bracket. Andrew E. Smith, who runs the UNH Survey Center, isn’t sure what impact health care will have on young voters at election time.

“Health care is certainly going to be the domestic issue that Democrats are going to be running on,” he said, but he doubts people will base their votes on that issue alone.

But for many, the issue resonates only after they experience a serious illness or injury. “I never would have been out of debt had I not had insurance,” Traylor said about the injuries he sustained in a skiing accident at 19. “Seeing it from the insured side gives me a tremendous amount of sympathy for those who don’t have it.”

Research sources and for more information: [Politico]; [picture1]; [picture2]