loan drones

Has anyone else made this connection?
Crippling student loan debt contributes to late transition to adulthood in middle-class American twentysomethings.
I'm nothing like the example in the article-- a young man with over $200k in student loans, his fiancee with $80k-- but I, too, feel that I am not really an adult, that being married and having kids isn't really a realistic option, because I haven't paid off my student loans yet.
I'm doing well-- I think my debt is in the neighborhood of $10k by this point. I've been working hard to pay it down since I got my first job in '03, though I had to defer payments for a year while unemployed. But then, I've had cheap rent, and have not owned a car. Ever.

Z's worse-- he's still over $20k, I think.

Neither of us have more than a bachelor's. I shudder to think what a PhD would set me back.

Has anyone else studied whether this correlates to the American trend of marrying later, buying homes later, having children later or not at all, etc.?

and on healthcare

Am I bored today? I must be, I'm reading Artvoice. Just kidding.
Here's another gem of omg-wow-that's-my-life:
On Healthcare

Yesterday at work, we all received the annual “bad news” envelope. Enclosed was the memo stating that next year our company’s healthcare premium would increase by 21 percent! How is this possible? With all the handwringing about healthcare costs being out of sight, hospital closings, consolidations and increased co-pays, how in the world could it jump that much? This means that even with my employer contributing to the plan, I will pay in excess of $7,000 next year to cover my wife, my daughter and myself. Now, the average household income in the Buffalo area is approximately $37,000, and many of my co-workers make this amount or less. When I ask them how they can afford to spend almost 20 percent of their income on healthcare, I found that many of them don’t. With mortgage and car payments, utilities, food and other necessities, they can’t afford the luxury of our company’s healthcare plan. These are conscientious, intelligent family men that need to forego an essential component of safeguarding their families because of cost. It’s not an “option that they have elected not to pursue,” as I have heard stated repeatedly by those who like the system as it presently exists. Just because a healthcare plan is made available to employees doesn’t automatically make it possible for them to participate.