Photo by Daniel.Techie

The Washington Post profiles those shiftless millennials, the twenty-somethings who graduate from college but cannot wean themselves off the parental teat. Specifically, the story’s about one of the immediate effects of the BFD: Insurance companies must allow children to remain on their insurance policies until their 26th birthday. Profiling one 22-year-old Bekah Steadwell, a Chevy Chase woman who graduated from Oberlin and works at the Wonderland Ballroom and Looking Glass Lounge and lives at home, the story finds the stormy lining on a silver cloud. The Post observes that “[s]oon, thanks to the health-care reform act President Obama signed into law Tuesday, Steadwell can piggyback on her parents in one more way.”

At the very least, the story acknowledges that the job market is a factor in the apparent lack of independence among these damned millennial mooches — who live at home well after graduation and take handouts like it was their dayjob. But there’s more anecdote than analysis in the story. For example, the Post talks to Sibley Memorial Hospital, whose human-resources director explains that parents of young staff call on behalf of their children to plead for days off and benefits. University admissions officers and real-estate agents chime in to say that parents intervene too much today, and kids don’t show any guts. (Note that the Post doesn’t ask Steadwell or any other millennial why she needs so much help from her parents.)

Brattiness is not so easily quantified — but unemployment is. Thirteen paragraphs into the story, the Post describes the bleak insurance figures faced by 19- to 29-year-olds. (Nearly 30% of them lack insurance.) If only there were something millennials could do to find the means to leave their parents’ homes and acquire adequate health insurance!