Posted on 04/01/2010 12:25:37 PM PDT by reaganaut1
Congress voted to overhaul the health care system on a Sunday. On Monday, Patti Lawson e-mailed her employer's human resources office to ask how soon she could get her 22-year-old daughter back on her health insurance.
In about six months, the new law will allow at least 2 million young adults to be covered by their parents' policies. These are the "millennials," those who came of age in the new century and now are struggling to get on their feet during the worst slump since the Depression.
Many can't find jobs, and many who are employed don't have health coverage from their employers.
The law will allow young adults to stay on or return to their parents' insurance until age 26. To qualify, young people must be "dependents" of their parents. They don't necessarily have to live under the same roof.
Lawson, a Gettysburg College administrator in Pennsylvania, said she is hoping to get her daughter back on her health plan because she is tired of playing "a roulette game." Her daughter has just a temporary job that doesn't provide insurance.
"You're banking on your child staying well," said Lawson, who has been a single parent since her husband died of cancer three years ago.
Regulations still have to be written, but here are some of the crucial specifics of the new law, based on a reading of the measure and interpretation by various experts:
-It applies to young adults up to their 26th birthday who don't have access to insurance through their employer.
-There is no dispute the measure applies to young people away at college. It is widely assumed the law also covers other young people living on their own.
-It will include married children but not their spouses or their kids.
(Excerpt) Read more at miamiherald.com ...
If the government stopped destroying jobs with increased regulations, employer mandates, and higher taxes, and if it allowed insurance companies to charge young people much lower rates, reflecting their health, more young people would have jobs with health insurance or be able to afford individual policies.
The freeloaders are coming out of the woodwork.
They will hopefully be billed at the same rates...otherwise it will collapse the insurance pools, robbing them of high paying, low using customers and forcing them out of business and everyone will end up in ObamaCare...oooooohhhhh...now I get it...
The reward for the moocher’s votes....
Spouse and kids can’t be on the policy? What cold hearted people! Do they not realize that some people in their twenties don’t have parents? And what about the kids? A twenty-five year old single mother can get on her parents’ insurance but not the grandbaby? What’s up with that?
I guess this won’t represent an additional expense to the parents.
If you add extra people to your policy, do your premiums increase? I started buying my own health insurance when I was 21.
What was the situation before this new age limit of 26?
Young people don’t care about health insurance coverage. This is more about the Obama suck-up media trying to offer support to their dear leader. AP, you are a disgrace.
Children being allowed on a parent’s insurance policy has been an Illinois state law since 6/1/09. Will they eventually make us pay our children’s rent and car payment also?
Its like - presto - all those young adults will go from being uncovered to covered. Thanks Barry!
It’s politics.
Everybody gets a break,
Except you, sucker!
How much must I pay,
If nobody else has to?
Five times my take-home?
“What was the situation before this new age limit of 26?”
Years ago, I know a kid had to be a dependent and 21 or under. The idea was to allow coverage through the college years, I believe, which does make sense to me.
Junior and Sweety are coming back onto Mommy’s and Daddy’s insurance? Guess what’s about to happen to family rates for medical insurance. Surprise! Unexpected!
Maybe it’s not quite the free ride it was advertised as, at least in this case. If this woman was paying as employee only and now has to go to the family rate, that’s usually a pretty good bump - almost double in my plan. Of course if someone has an adult child with a serious pre-existing condition, the insurance company is the loser which may be the most common case where this will be used.
It was cheaper for my wife and I to maintain separate insurance until the children came along. Now we are on a “Self and Family” plan, which costs three times what either of the “Self Only” plans cost.
So, yeah... The parents are screwed...
Are parents allowed to claim their 26-year old children as "dependents" on their tax returns?
This is complete and utter BS. AP needs to get its facts straight.’ In PA a child can stay on a parent’s insurance plan until age 31, NJ and NY are also 31. Wisc i think is 28.Several are 27
In fact nearly all states allow children on their parent’s insurance until 25. I am not sure if there is a state that doesn’t
The LIES MSM keeps on telling are vile
Thanks for the info. Was that an agreement between all insurance companies to cut it off at 21?
I think it depended on the plan, but not sure.
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