Anti-Heath Care Reform Protesters Skewed Old, White

This Saturday I was in downtown Washington, D.C. and saw a white woman in her late 40s or early 50s wearing a red t-shirt with white lettering that said, “Mississippi Freedom Riders 9-12-09.” She was one of the tens of thousands of anti-heath care reform protesters that marched on Washington this weekend, and she seemed to think that protesting government regulation on health care reform equated the struggles of integrationists fighting for racial equality in the Civil Rights era.

The crowd of protesters this weekend skewed older and white. In many ways, it was the opposite of the crowed that gathered for President Barack Obama’s inauguration this January, a crowd that was diverse by every measure of the word.

The chief demands the “taxpayer” protesters this weekend advocated was more or less a catchall of talking points purported by right-wing talk radio: heath care reform should not cover illegal immigrants (it doesn’t, though it probably should), there shouldn’t be death panels that tell granny when she should die (there aren’t), heath care reform shouldn’t be a burden on the taxpayer (it already is), and keeping the government out of health care (despite the fact that a good chunk were old enough to be on Medicare).

And those were among the more comprehensive requests. Other displays from protesters included general arguments against socialism, the carrying of confederate flags, various manifestations of Obama as the Joker/the devil/an African lion, and proud defenses of the 2nd amendment.

But missing from these crowds of angry protesters were Millennials. Sure, there were some kids tagging along with their parents, but you didn’t see very many young adults protesting so-called “Obamacare.” This is perhaps because a recent poll shows young adults, 18 to 29, are the demographic most in favor of health care reform. Young people have some of the highest uninsured rates—around 30 percent—and are the group least likely to be on employer-sponsored health insurance. Again, this is probably why this demographic is most supportive of a public option, or a government-sponsored health insurance plan that the average consumer can buy into and would serve as competition in health insurance markets.

The protesters this weekend showed up in the tens of thousands. Some estimates put the numbers at around 30,000 in Washington, D.C. alone. It certainly isn’t an insignificant amount of people. But it also isn’t particularly representative of the future. The young adults, the ones that will be “stuck with the bill” if health care reform passes, don’t seem scared of the same things that these protesters were.

If anything, young people—and for that matter, many of the people that gathered to protest this weekend—have much to gain from health care reforms that Congress is considering: reduced costs, increased access to heath insurance and health care, and regulations that will stop insurance companies from engaging in some of the worst practices like refusing people for pre-existing conditions. And perhaps what’s most interesting is a Rasmussen poll released today notes that support for health care reform is at 51 percent, it’s highest yet.

The protesters may have managed to gather a big crowd to protest big government, but they also benefit from some of the very things they protest. I saw many people on the taxpayer-subsidized Metro late on Saturday afternoon carrying “Joe Wilson for President” signs who commented on how clean and efficient it was and how wonderful that the Smithsonian museums, which have their own line in the federal budget, are free. Sometimes, the hidden benefits are more important than the hidden costs.

Kay Steiger is editor of Campus Progress.

Kay Steiger is the editor of CampusProgress.org.

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