At 1,990 pages, the health care bill passed in the House last Saturday is complex, imposing, and expensive. The massive bureaucracies and restrictions it would create are ringing in at more than a trillion dollars and counting. Save the world, one tax dollar at a time. And one alarming aspect of this bill is the power it gives the government to reallocate income from the country’s youth.

The House bill promises universal coverage and claims to pay for it (or at least some of it) by forcing universal compliance. Everyone must play, others must pay. But for legislation that has been championed as bringing equal coverage to all, the burden of paying for it is anything but equal. Young adults have become the most likely of targets to foot the bill. Healthy, active, and at the lower end of the pay scale, the millennial generation tends to place purchasing health insurance at the end of their to-do list. While this is a risk, it is nonetheless a personal, calculated decision. Now our Big Brothers in Washington have decided to make our decisions for us.

In the perfect world envisioned by policymakers in Congress, every young adult would have the means necessary to buy health insurance with little effect on his or her budget. But in the real world, where the average income for adults in their 20s is around $33,000, means are more limited. In a column for the New York Daily News on Sunday, Aaron Yelowitz compared premium regulations in New York (where young adults are required to pay the same amount as older adults) to California (where they are not). For a 25-year-old living in New York, this means paying a median premium of $410/month as opposed to only $134 in California. That’s an extra car payment or any number of other purchases each month.

The legislation in Congress seeks to use the same redistributive schemes currently enforced in New York. This would push health insurance prices far higher than the market average over time. Californians are also able to choose from nearly ten times as many plans as in New York. Since individuals haven’t been burdened by increased regulations, California has allowed more choices and access at a lower price.

If Congress starts imposing mandates to purchase health insurance, that will likely drive premiums even higher, causing more young adults to opt out of buying it altogether. Anticipating this trend, lawmakers included provisions to eliminate options altogether. They’ll just make everyone buy it. An entire demographic, one which voted overwhelmingly for “change” in 2008, will now be forced to choose between subsidizing health care for the older, wealthier part of the population or facing penalties of possible jail time or steep fines.

Write to Thomas.Doheny@afphq.org