OUR VIEW: Few students are informed enough to have opinions on Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act is little known to many USU students. Obamacare – now that’s a heavy topic. Though they’re the same thing, most people don’t know the real name of the legislation.

Here’s our point. The majority of students and even staff at the Statesman don’t feel educated enough about health care to form their own opinion about the issue.

Young adults and USU students get a lot of their information from Facebook. Unfortunately, the people that decide to make memes and advertisements about health care know absolutely nothing about the act and believe most of the negative hype they hear. The most common pieces of misinformation we hear are about death panels, a government takeover of the medical industry, doctors and Americans not wanting it and the likelihood that the bill will drive young adults and small businesses into bankruptcy.

These have only perpetuated themselves into our heads because of the negative and uninformed views of the majority of the public.

Despite the hype surrounding the subject, we feel like the ACA has good intentions and it will benefit thousands of students and citizens in the U.S. We just don’t know enough about the subject to give an opinion.

The most important thing for students to do at this point – even those in firm opposition – is to accept the fact that the ACA passed three years ago and educate ourselves about how it’s going to affect us. Open enrollment begins Oct. 1, and the insurance goes into effect Jan. 1. Fines for not being insured will be applied on our 2014 taxes and they will dramatically increase in 2015 and 2016.