By now, most Americans have heard from the president about what exactly his health care proposal will not do.
It will not generate outstanding debts for future generations, adding "waste" and "abuse" to an already inefficient budgetary system. It will not set up "death panels" designed to "kill off" senior citizens or provide coverage to illegal immigrants. It will not affect people who are currently happy with the coverage they have, nor will it become a tool for government takeover.
Still, many Americans have little idea as to what reforms the president does plan to enact and how exactly he plans to pay for them.
In his address to a joint session of Congress last Wednesday, Obama said his plan will serve three primary goals: "It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance for those who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses and our government."
As for the cost?
"Add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years," he said. "Less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration."
Meanwhile, those that could be most affected by the changes also happen to have perhaps the least knowledge about the government's plans. Young people make up a large segment of the populace but frequently are not informed about healthcare issues.
Spectators to a daily display of partisan bickering by the media, it is no surprise that many of America's young people are ignorant of Obama's proposed reforms, said third-year College student Michael Karlik.
"Obviously, most of us haven't read the bill," he said. "Even though young people are the most uninsured and most vulnerable, at best we are ambivalent and at worst we don't care."\nYoung people aged 19 to 29 make up almost 40 percent of the nation's 46 million uninsured.
Known as "the young invincibles" by leading members of the health care industry, on the whole, "young people have an artificial and unrealistic sense of their own immortality," said Politics Prof. Herman Schwartz. "Young people are healthier and they think they will always be healthy."
According to an article by Ed Edelson titled, "More young people going without health insurance," 38 percent of high school graduates and 34 percent of college graduates spend some time uninsured in the year after graduation.
Paired with the facts that younger Americans are new to the labor force, are more likely to be self-employed and are more likely to occupy temporary employment, most young people are concerned about the cost of care, Schwartz said.
For the sake of explanation, under Obama's plan, all Americans will be required to carry basic health insurance, "just as most states require you to carry auto insurance," the president said.\nBut as some argue, if young people cannot afford heath insurance now, what about the current system will change to accommodate them?
On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, discussed two elements of the president's proposal: government subsidies and a public option. The former will assist those who cannot quite meet their premiums while the latter will offer a government-run option to those who cannot afford private coverage at all. Only about 5 to 10 percent of the population will qualify for the public option.
The overarching idea, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said, is that everyone will pay into the system, making up otherwise lost revenue streams.
"Uninsured people today show up at the hospital sick, they are treated and their costs are passed on to the rest of us," he said.
Schwartz framed the issue in a similar way, noting that the supposed changes may not change the actual landscape much.
"The insured are already paying for the uninsured," Schwartz said.
In his opinion, the $900 billion price tag attached to the president's plan is "not very much."
"We are already spending a lot of money," he said.
The president also said he will not sign off on a health care bill that adds even "one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future, adding that "reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan."
Whether his plan is financially practical is still a matter of debate, though.
According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office, it will take more than the 10-year timeline to pay for the president's plan.
Despite Obama's campaign promise not to raise taxes on the middle class, some fear that he will have no other option.
"It is clear taxes are going up and I think the question is when," economist and CNBC analyst Erin Burnett said. Looking at the deficit, "if the president's plan passes and you taxed everyone in the top 5 [percent] at 100 percent, you wouldn't get rid of it."
Many young people rightly assume that they will "be stuck" with part of the cost to improve health care, Karlik said, but "you have to pay to get what you want."
For Schwartz, "the young are clear winners from something like this," he said. "The young don't have much. If they get any plan, they're better off by definition."
By his estimation, the average person spends $1.5 million during his lifetime on health care and "given [that] we don't know what will happen to us, we have to take from those who have and give to those who need," Schwartz said. "The net cost of the plan isn't going to be that great, but by bringing people in earlier, it will be cheaper to treat them."
Dean said cutting unnecessary costs in the current health care system will not only pay for a majority of the president's proposed reforms, but will also drive down insurance premiums to make coverage more affordable for everyday Americans.
"Waste that the Republicans have been talking about for years, the abuse that the Republicans have talked about for years, the stuff that the insurance companies are getting for profit over and above what their services are. They're - two-thirds of this bill is paid for with savings ... There is so much fat in this system, we can pay for it."
With the final details of Obama's plan still to be ironed out, however, the total costs and benefits for Americans are still uncertain. One thing that is clear, though, is that with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, Obama and his party will get some form of his health care plan passed.
"I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last," he said.
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