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600,000 young adults get health insurance through Obamacare

by on May. 26, 2011, under Health

Kaiser Health News reports that 600,000 young adults took advantage of a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows people under 26 to remain on their parents’ employer health insurance.

Wellpoint, the largest health insurer in the country, got 280,000 new clients as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Aetna added close to 100,000; Kaiser Permanente, about 90,000 new clients.

Here are excerpts from the Kaiser Heath News article:

Under the health law, health plans and employers must offer coverage to enrollees’ adult children until age 26 even if the young adult no longer lives with his or her parents, is not a dependent on a parent’s tax return, or is no longer a student.

According to the federal estimates, adding young adult coverage is likely to increase average family premiums by about 1 percent.

People in their 20s have the highest uninsured rate of any age group—about 30 percent, federal data show. Two factors are largely behind this: Young adults are most likely to work for employers that don’t provide coverage and young adults don’t understand the need for health insurance.

The federal government added 280,000 people to its insurance rolls because of the dependent coverage, said a spokeswoman for the Office of Personnel Management.

Before the federal law was passed, many insurers dropped coverage of children either at age 18 or 21 or when the children graduated from college. More than half the states required coverage to continue until at least age 25, but those laws often had several restrictions.

The full article can be read here:  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2011/may/01/young-adult-health-insurance-coverage.aspx?referrer=search

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 26th, 2011 at 8:38 am and is filed under Health. Tags for this post: , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • Barker

    This is a good thing, thx for posting.

  • YouBetcha

    Good thing I am forced to support this by higher premiums on my insurance and I don’t have care about anyone these people.
    Progressivism: Eroding charity for over a century.

    • medicareblogger

      You are not paying for the increased premiums – the father or mother with employer health insurance pays a bit more for their son or daughter’s coverage. This is a simple and inexpensive way to get more people covered with health insurance so they don’t bankrupt their family if they get sick.  Or, the family could certainly let the government pay for their child’s medical bills, since they are not legally responsible for them.  So how is this a bad thing?

      • Antinyx

        At least the young adults are covered by private insurance.  I am amazed that conservatives want to protect private insurance companies, then complain about a law that brings the private insurance companies more business!

    • Zer0

      I can see how that would be a problem for a sociopath.

  • YouBetcha

    “when the children graduated from college”
     
    LOL!

  • larrybuck

    I just heard it on the radio that “Penny Health Insurance” can offer health insurance for just $1 a day any one aware of this ? have anyone purchased insurance through them. I did search for them and found them online.

    • medicareblogger

      Beware of advertisements that say you can get health insurance that costs $1 a day. Such a cheap health insurance plan probably requires a $10,000 or higher deductible. This means you get to pay the first $10,000 of your medical bills and then the insurance kicks in.

  • Renee

    I am single and loss my job along with the health insurance I had in Sept. of 2010.  I am still unemployed, so where can I get affordable health insurance?

  • medicareblogger

    Email me at medicareblog@gmail so we can go over your options.

  • Erica

    The problem with this new health insurance coverage for young adults is that its an option for the parent who has the insurance.  My son is  a type one diabetic and his sperm donor is refusing to continue my sons health insurance now that he is 18. So now my son has to hope he gets on the state medical. It should be required if the child has a disease and the other parent does not have health coverage except for the state medical.

    • medicareblogger

      If your son goes without heath insurance for six months – which you certainly don’t want him to do – he can enroll in the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan.   I just wrote about this plan today and provided a link to the web site for it. Your son could get pretty good coverage for around $100 per month.

      The PCIP usually requires that a person be denied health insurance after applying – but now they will take a note from a doctor that says a person has a certain condition. Diabetes is a condition that makes someone un-insurable.  The PCIP would work for your son.

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