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Did We Forget the Kids...

The good is that dependent children up to age 26 would be eligible for coverage under their parents’ plans instead of the current state-by-state rules that often cut off coverage for children at 18 or 19.

The bad news is that some of the biggest health insurance companies have decided to eliminate child-only policies as an option due to the potentially huge and unexpected costs for insuring children. The major health insurance companies are making the move as new federal healthcare laws take place that bars them from rejecting children under age 19 with preexisting medical conditions. The action will apply only to new coverage and not to existing child-only plans, family plans or insurance provided to children through their parents’ employers. New plans are less affordable particularly in the current economy. With unemployment rates on the rise and employers cutting corners as much as possible, the more expensive family plans are simply out of reach for many of today’s families.

The insurers state that they believe the change to have a small effect on families, as they now only sell relatively few child-only policies. It is estimated that somewhere between 100,000 and 700,000 children are currently on child-only health insurance policies. The America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) sayitself won't impact a large percentage of the population; a recent survey by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) found that 6 percent of individual policies are child-only plans.

Uninsured children generally live in lower-income families. Uninsured children are also geographically concentrated. Almost half live in the South and an additional quarter live in the West. This pattern is true regardless of income, though children who would be eligible for a Medicaid expansion or subsidies are disproportionately more likely to reside in the South than other groups of uninsured children.

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Jim Robinson posted on Monday, November 15, 2010

Tags: Health Care Reform, Health Reform, Children Health Care

Posted in: Health Reform

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