Better Cover For Young Adults

By Author: Norris Rios
Total Articles: 572
Comment this article

One of the major problems for families has been the age of their children. No matter whether the parents were on private or an employer plan, there was always an age cut-off so that older teens or young adults were forced out of cover. For those who went on to college, this was slightly less of a problem because most of the better-run colleges and universities offer subsidized cover for their students and, in some cases, their alumni. But for those not pursuing higher education, the threat of larger health bills was always in the back of minds when looking for work. In the boom years, it was reasonably easy for young adults to find employment and, in many cases, this gave access to a health plan. But following the recession, the national rate of unemployment has stayed over 9%. For young adults, the rate of unemployment varies from state to state, but it's often 20% or higher with no immediate prospects of employers looking to hire from among the young unemployed. Although education is not for everyone, this really is the best time to wait out the bad years in school or college, picking up all the qualifications possible. It's ...
... going to be difficult to find work for some time to come.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 is somewhat controversial, but there are one of two good outcomes. One allows those under age 26 to stay on their parents' plan as dependents. As a result, about one million more young adults have been able to obtain cover or stay covered. The total number of adults without any access to insurance cover, which includes Medicaid and Veterans' cover, is around 52 million. Of these, the percentage of uninsured young adults has dropped to 30%. Currently, that means there are about 9 million young adults without any healthcare cover. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control recently carried out an survey and estimates young adults are the most likely group to be uninsured. That the number of insured young adults has increased given the appalling unemployment numbers is encouraging.

The skeptics among you will argue there are many other reasons why the number of uninsured young adults should fall. You will deny any benefit could come from the hated Obamacare. Unfortunately, the percentages of uninsured has stayed constant in all the other age groups. This suggests the change in law is the reason for the drop. For the record, all the health plans were required to change their eligibility criteria as from September 23, 2010. All plan renewals after that date have accepted young adults. So we have had this law in operation for a year and, allowing for the fact not everyone will have taken up the offer yet, there's still scope for more young adults to come on to their parents' plans.

Because younger people tend to be in better health, the health insurance quotes for adding young adults as dependents should be relatively low. Perhaps the more interesting outcome affects employment. In the past, young adults have been chasing jobs with health insurance plans on offer. If these people can stay on their parents plans until 26, this improves their choices of employment. Hopefully, people will recognize this benefit and think better of Obamacare.