One of the great things that the Affordable Care Act has put in place is the ability for young adults to be covered under their parent’s health insurance plans. This is one of the most popular parts of the ACA. The coverage is helping, but, many young adults are still struggling with medical bills not covered by their insurers.
On September 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act required health insurance companies to provide coverage for young adults who are under the age of 26 on their parent’s health insurance plans. Previous to this regulation, insurers were able to drop coverage for people who were covered by their parent’s health insurance plan as soon as that person turned 18 years old.
The result was that a lot of young adults were going completely without health insurance coverage. They weren’t able to get the kind of jobs that came with health insurance benefits and they couldn’t afford to purchase a plan from a private insurer.
Today, in order for a young adult to be eligible for coverage through his parent’s health plan, it requires the parents of a young adult to have the type of health insurance that will cover their children. The young adult must be between the ages of 18 and 26, and must be an American citizen. The young adult could either stay on his or her parent’s plan after turning 18, or could now be added to it. It doesn’t matter if the young adult lives with his parents, is financially dependent on his parents, or if he is independent from them. Young adults who are married can still be covered by their parent’s health plans.
The Commonwealth Fund polled 1,863 adults who were between the ages of 19 and 25. They found that 47% of them either stayed on their parent’s plan, or joined it, between November of 2010 and November of 2011. This translate2 to around 13.7 million young adults.
The Commonwealth Fund also found that 36% of young adults who were between the ages of 19 and 29 had difficulty paying medical bills, or said that they were paying off medical debt. This is despite having health insurance coverage. About 51% of the young adults who were completely uninsured had medical debt.
Why is this happening? The biggest reason has to do with maternity coverage. Young adults, as a group, need maternity coverage. Most health insurance plans specifically exclude coverage for maternity. The only way to get maternity coverage is to buy more insurance coverage, (which makes the overall cost of the plan go up).
Image by Rachel Savage on Flickr