Young Adults and Health Insurance

Young adults between the ages of 18 and 28 represent one of the largest fast growing segments of the U.S. population without health care coverage.  In an effort to ensure that all Americans are insured a growing number of states have enacted legislation to allow children to stay on their parent’s health insurance plans until the age of 23.

Youth is now at a higher risk of being uninsured. Young adults accounted for were over 13 million of the approximately 45.7 million Americans under the age of 65 living without health insurance in 2007, according to the latest available census data.  That amounts to approximately 30 percent of 18 through 28 year old young adults living without insurance.  According to recent studies, the young adults most at risk of lacking health care coverage are those from low income households. The reports data also found that Hispanic and black young adults were at greater risk of being uninsured than whites.  Specifically, 36% of blacks and 53% of Hispanics between the ages of 18-28 lacked health care insurance, compared to 23% of whites in 2008.

Most children receive health care insurance either through their parent’s or guardian’s policy or a public health plan.  This coverage generally expires when a young adult graduates high school or college or at the age of 18. Once being dropped from their parent’s policy or from a public program it is often difficult for young adult’s to secure their own health insurance, either because of ordinary transitions, their employment status, or for monetary reasons. Especially when an Estimated 40% of uninsured young adults live in households with incomes below the federal poverty level.  Purchasing private insurance is often not an option, but is possible if research is done for the most affordable and beneficial private insurance company in your area.

In response to the growing problems of uninsured young adults, states have passed laws that require health insurers to allow young adults to stay on their parent’s health insurance policies for a longer period of time.  According to personal research, 34 states now have laws that expand dependent health insurance coverage and 17 of these states considered such legislation in 2009.  There are three states, Idaho, Pennsylvania and Nebraska adopted those measures.  A half dozen similar bills are still pending either for this year or carrying over into 2010.  New Hampshire, which already allows young adults to stay on their parent’s policy up until age 26, has sent a bill that would allow low-income adults up to the same age buy into the state’s Healthy Kids program for approximately $200 a month.

There are limits to some laws to qualify coverage to young adults who stay on their parent’s policies. The majority of states which have extended the age of which young adults can remain on their parent’s policies place certain restrictions on the health care coverage, such as requiring the young adult to be unmarried, and in all but a few states coverage can only be extended to young adults who have no children of their own.

According to sources, states find these laws attractive because they allow more people access to health coverage without the state having to pick up the tab.  However, they caution that these bills are not a solution for the rising tide of health care costs, especially since the measures adopted this far do not require employers to carry an employee’s adult dependents on the company policy and that the laws generally apply only to employer-provided group plans.