Hiring is done by the Human Resource Department and it is responsible for controlling health insurance costs as it is one of their budget lines. One of the major ways they control costs is to keep the average age of the employee younger.

The cost of health insurance is set yearly in 2 ways. The first issue is the average age of the work force for the company is analyzed. It is further broken down into male, female, geographic location and jobs performed by the employees. This is a beginning factor for a new policy. The older the average ages of the group the higher the costs of the policy.

 Another factor with an existing policy is the history of the group. The higher the costs last year the higher this factor drives this new years increase.

The Human Relations Department thus has an incentive to hire young and not hire older workers of any age.

If you are in your late 40's, you are old by present insurance standards. In fact older workers are fired (laid off) because of our present way of providing private health care insurance.

The private insurance policies cost every older American INCOME and hope of getting better paying jobs with the companies we want to work for with good pay, healthcare and wages paid.

 Now bitch about single payer all day but anything else cost us as we age our income, employment and our quality of life as we mature.

PS, President Obama we would gladly pay higher taxes if we were employable by the better companies. This also does not take into account the opportunity costs to the companies and country of the experience lost by not employing the most capable Citizens.