Last week, Eliot Sherman wrote about how our generation needs to start voting. He also used prescription drug benefits as an example of how politicians pander to voters' concerns. I couldn't agree more.
Maybe it's something that comes with age, like living in Florida and watching CBS, but older people vote much more than younger people do. This situation is far more serious at Penn, which has an anecdotal reputation as being a particularly politically apathetic school.
In the American political system, the representatives that are elected don't represent all Americans -- they represent all Americans that vote. As a result, the policies that representatives support are determined by those that vote for them.
The sad conclusion that can be drawn is that the government cares about the concerns of the older generation. Our concerns take a backseat to the concerns of others.
Take the latest prescription drug plan to be rammed through Congress, for example. It calls for the expansion of Medicare to encompass prescription medications for all seniors, no matter how wealthy they are (meaning Robert Byrd's Crazy Pills will now be paid for by the American taxpayer).
The implementation of this prescription drug plan has been estimated to cost the American people $400 billion in the first 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. However, estimates of cost for these types of programs are never accurate. This is especially true in the case of a prescription drug plan, as the lowered cost of drugs will allow people to use far more drugs than they do now. Young people from any end of the political spectrum should be up in arms that such a plan is even being considered.
To liberals: This prescription drug plan is good in that it helps people afford drugs who may not have been able to in the first place. But why just seniors? People of all ages need prescription drugs. Although the drug plan does provide some good, it is not addressing the vast need that younger people have for prescription drugs. A younger person who can't afford desperately needed medication is just as tragic a case and needs just as much help as someone over 65 (plus, we don't have those cool MedicAlert buttons that they can push if we've fallen and we can't get up).
Furthermore, the elderly are actually better prepared to pay for medications than their younger counterparts. It has been estimated that people over 65 hold over 60 percent of this country's wealth. A universal prescription drug plan would certainly be a far better step than only helping the elderly.
To conservatives: This is simply another entitlement program (by which I mean that the government will be entitling itself to more and more of our money). Everyone who has ever had a job has seen a huge portion of their money go to Social Security. The same will be true of a prescription drug plan. If a prescription drug plan for seniors is put into action, it will set a dangerous precedent. The aging baby boomer population will demand more entitlements in addition to Social Security and prescription drugs. What's next? Nursing home care? Government-sponsored bingo? And with each entitlement will come a rise in taxes and more money sapped from your paycheck.
As you move into your more productive years, you will see your gains slowly being drained away by more federal programs for the elderly. Until, of course, you reach retirement age, at which point all the programs will become bankrupt and you will get nothing.
Tomorrow, Philadelphia will go to the polls to decide who will be mayor for the next four years. Any student who is reading this will be here for at least a part of that term and therefore has a stake in this election. If we, as a group, do not vote as much as other groups do, it will allow whoever gets elected to ignore the issues that we care about.
Just because this particular election isn't national doesn't mean our interests aren't at stake. For example, this next mayor will directly affect our ability to find the types of jobs that we need in order to stay in this city. Car insurance premiums are astronomical in this city, and that also needs to be fixed in order for us to be able to stay. And as young people, we have our own perspectives on other major issues that need to be heard.
Every student at the University of Pennsylvania who is eligible to vote in Philadelphia ought to do so. If this apathetic trend continues, then our ideas, our dreams will simply be overlooked. And, as the recent prescription drug plan has shown, none of us -- Democrat, Republican or anything in between -- can afford to let that happen.
Dan Gomez is a junior History major from Wayne, Pa.
